Blessed Thanksgiving

https://odb.org/2025/11/27/a-humble-thanksgiving

Proverbs 22:1,6 (NIV): A good name is more desirable than great riches; to be esteemed is better than silver or gold. 6 Start children off on the way they should go and even when thet are old they will not turn away from it.

One Thanksgiving I called home to greet my parents. As we talked, I asked my mom what she was most grateful for. She exclaimed that she was most grateful that “all three of my children know how to call on the name of the Lord.” For my mother, who’d always emphasized the importance of education, there was something more valuable than her children doing well in school and taking care of themselves. (Katara Patton, Our Daily Bread 27th November 2025)

In a way, Thanksgiving is a celebration or festival that’s quite unique to the North American culture, that is much rooted in being grateful to God for giving them a good harvest. It has now become a more secular holiday celebrated as a cultural tradition around one month before Christmas. As a harvest festival, it is however not unique as various cultures across the globe celebrate harvests like the Chinese mid-autumn festival (moon cakes) or the Gawai of the Borneo Dayaks.

Although we Malaysians do not celebrate Thanksgiving like the North Americans, the concept of being grateful and thankful to the Lord is something we must cultivate, whether as part of our daily routine or every Sunday as we worship Him in church. We must be thankful for His calling upon our lives to be sons and daughters of God. While many are called, few are chosen, in the sense, not many actually respond to God’s call of salvation. There are several who responded but as the trappings of the world creep in and faced with the pressures of living, they have sadly fallen by the wayside and “forgotten” God. That is why Paul exhorts us in Romans 12:2 not to be conformed to the pattern of this world but be transformed by the renewing of our minds that we may test and prove the good, pleasing and perfect will of God. Jesus Himself taught of the good soil versus the rocky soil.

As parents, our greatest joy and satisfaction in life is to see our children thrive in the midst of the challenges in the world but most importantly, knowing how to call upon the name of the Lord. It’s the greatest gift given to mankind, the gift of salvation and eternal life that one day we may all live in the new heaven and new earth with God as He dwells amongst His people.

Happy and blessed Thanksgiving to those who are celebrating in the US and Canada! Have a good celebration with family and friends as we usher in the Christmas season! Soon 2026 will dawn upon us and we will in the course of the new year be one year older! 😊

My prayer for all of us – “May the Lord our God bless us and keep us; may the Lord make His face shine upon us and be gracious to us; may the Lord lift up His countenance upon us and give us peace”.