My wife made a stop at her favorite library this week. As she was checking out, the library attendant mentioned Thanksgiving and how it was her favorite gathering of the year.

“Why is it your favorite?” my wife asked.

“Because it is only about family and friends gathering around a table full of food for an all too brief time of conversation with family and friends. No gifts. Less commercialism. Everyone’s accepted. That is what I like about Thanksgiving.”

Well said.

Thanksgiving is our favorite holiday as well. It is a good time of the year and a good season. I admit that deep at heart I am a Currier and Ives type of person. Warm nostalgic scenes of home and hearth and people gathering for an occasion where the focus can be on people and giving thanks.

This year I am thankful for several things. I guess the good health of my family tops the list. We are all a year older. Muscle aches and twinges are felt more. We have learned to absorb them into the daily routine and keep going. Unexpected random pain comes with age. "Get used to it," those older are quick to say.

I am thankful for a job I love to go to each morning. It is meaningful work in what is called the “field of the Lord.” Every week I get just enough feedback to know what I do makes a positive difference in the lives of people of all ages. Anyone else who can say the same must feel satisfaction. After more than four decades in the work force I think I am in a pretty good place.

I am thankful free speech is still a right guaranteed by the Constitution in America. I can still teach what the Bible says about human morality, not what is culturally or politically correct at the moment. I know there are movements that seek to limit that right. Too many students on college campuses today do not understand the value of a liberal education, which allows for diversity of thought and speech. Recent events at the University of Missouri and other campuses remind us freedom is something each generation must learn to understand and appreciate. I sometimes fear we could easily lose such freedoms. That we have not is something for us all to give thanks to God for.

I am thankful America is still the richest and most generous economy in the world. I am thankful it is a place where people from all over the world desire to come and live and work. I just wish all the Hispanics, Syrians, Africans and others would line up at the proper embassy or consular office and apply for legal admission. One hundred years ago we had a place called Ellis Island. The lines of those who sought admission were long. But there was order and a system that worked. America grew great in part because there was a process for admission and a path to citizenship that was respected by everyone. Sadly, that has broken down today.

I am thankful God still watches over this land. America is an exceptional nation but not for the reason most assume. It is exceptional because more than four hundred years ago God put a people in this land who could further His providential plan for the nations. This land was prepared as a place where God could demonstrate one of His greatest spiritual qualities–His enduring faithfulness. That God fulfilled every detail of the promises made to Abraham, including the fullness of the physical dimension, confirms He will fulfill every part of the spiritual promise through Jesus Christ. I use our American Thanksgiving holiday as a reminder of who watches over this nation.

God watches over America. His angel is in the storm that continually threatens to crash over our shores and sweep us into the dustbin of history. That has not yet happened. God help us all when it does.

I give thanks at dawn of each day that there is an opportunity to preach the everlasting gospel of God and His Kingdom. May that gospel guide and richly bless your life.