Embrace the blessing of living in a free nation under God

Well, it’s Thanksgiving week. So we’re thankful for so many things. And I want to just mention briefly a few that I think we should keep in our forefront, as we’re looking at DC politics, as we’re looking at the state of affairs around the world, particularly in Israel and Ukraine, if we’re looking at even just our own situation of debt and deficits, and just some of the turmoil of life that has come to us during this 2023 year of what suppose have been expectations, to pull ourselves into a better and more perfect union, it’s been almost a disaster. 

So we get to this place every year, right about November, going into December Advent week to say, maybe there are a few things we could be thankful for. Maybe instead of thinking about all the problems that we have in our lives, we should look at what we can appreciate. Well, of course, first and foremost, we can think about thanking God, thanking God for all he has done in our lives. Now a lot of people don’t even believe in God anymore. In fact, we look at data at my organization CURE, and we see a lot of people don’t even believe in God anymore. We have more nuns in ONES, than we do people that say, I’m evangelical Bible believing, and I really go to church on Sunday morning, take seriously the things that I hear. But we should thank God, even whether you’re an environmentalist, or trying to save the world, for some peace project, God is the reason that we care at all for any one or anything. So that’s the first thing. 

Second thing is we can be thankful for our families. Now even though there’s a lot of strife and family and the typical over Thanksgiving dinner, we can be thankful for our family, a whole lot of people are alone today. A whole lot of people’s lives have been upset, not just by wars abroad. But even here, relationships are coming apart because of many things that have happened in the political realm, as well as in just the financial realm. So we can be thankful for our families. 

We can also be thankful that we live in a free country. Thanksgiving is here in this country. And for reason other countries don’t do Thanksgiving, we do Thanksgiving, not just to thank God, not just to thank our families, but to thank ourselves for living in a free society. Why thank ourselves because we’re the ones that help keep it free. Well, we have a whole lot of political debates, and a whole lot of them get really nasty and ugly and dirty, and especially working here in Washington, DC, we at least get to debate. 

I was just recently at the Free Palestine rally that was held here in Washington, DC, and I was sitting in a restaurant, and the folks leaning into my table watching the rally watching the protests were talking to each other and talking specifically to me, because one of those that were watching was a 12 year old boy, and he was from Singapore, where they cannot march through their streets at all. We can be thankful we have freedom. 

I was just recently with the pro Israel rally. We sent cameras there when my organization was there. Hundreds of 1000s of people saying we stand with Israel, we want the hostages free. And we’re allowed to do that in this country. So we should be thankful. We should be thankful that there’s continuous discussion here in Washington and it can get really violent discussion about the role of government in each of our lives. Where should government be limited? Where should government flourish? Where should we, as a free people put our attention, put our resources as we pull our resources into taxes? What should we be doing as a country together? So those are three things that I think that we can look at this holiday season as we move out of Thanksgiving into Advent and then in the Christmas, we can be thankful for God, for our families, and for the fact that we live in a free nation under God