When I celebrate Thanksgiving, I count my blessings. I am grateful for what I have, individually, and what we have as a nation. We are so rich that there is enough spilling over to waste and take for granted.
In America, even the poor suffer from obesity. In America, we have so much, that a person has to pretty much sabotage his or her life with drugs, alcohol, and other vices in order to go hungry. In America, even the poorest child can rise far above his parents by simply not repeating their mistakes.
I am thankful that we live in a land of milk and honey, and that life is so good that we have to go looking for disaster. And even if disaster overtakes you, there are resources available if you look for them. There may be holes in the safety net, but at least there is a net.
In spite of how good things are, you can always be ungrateful. You can always find fault. You can keep a record of them and bring accusations against the people you envy, even going back many generations. Thanks to the internet, you can network with other ungrateful people, get organized, and bring accusations and demand restitution from a very broad span of American society. That means that you can live in this land of plenty and make yourself miserable. And then, you can make other people miserable who would otherwise be thankful.
Today, and every day, we can choose to be thankful. We can be thankful that in spite of the presence of injustice in the world, there will be ultimate justice. There will be a final accounting and a final settlement by the God who sees it all. And because He is a merciful God, He has provided a means of escaping the punishment for sin. He gave His Son to die for us on a cross, so that whosoever believes in Him would not perish but have eternal life. Of course, you don’t have to believe. You can choose to remain miserable and ungrateful. But we don’t have to be miserable with you.
My actual “Message of the Day” is my daily Bible study, with the latest posts listed below. 😀