Thanksgiving

[sugarssweetpea]

Saturday, November 18

This week's promise: God blesses those who seek after him

What Thanksgiving should be

"How wonderful it is, how pleasant when brothers live together in harmony!
Psalm 133:1 NLT"

Fighting historical vandalism

" In an article in Focus on the Family's Citizen magazine, Douglas Phillips describes how he took his family to Plymouth, Massachusetts, a few years ago and was shocked at what he found. Atop Cole's Hill, the burial ground for Pilgrims who died that first hard winter, Phillips was startled to see a city truck pull up and men pile out carrying shovels. They told Phillips the city was placing a new monument.

"Most revolutions are staged at night," Phillips wrote, so he wasn't surprised the next day to find stone markers all over Plymouth designating Thanksgiving as a day of mourning—a day to recall how the Pilgrims murdered and stole from their Indian neighbors. That afternoon, demonstrators—mostly white college kids—celebrated their victory by defacing the traditional monuments. Plymouth had transformed a tale of religious freedom into a story of genocide.

The historical reality is totally different. While it's true that later settlers abused the Native Americans, the Pilgrims and the Wampanoag Indians lived together in peace for 50 years. They signed covenants, bought and sold property, and fought against mutual enemies.

The modern obsession with group identity and victimhood encourages us to see those assigned to other groups as our enemies. When we interact with them, we ought to recall the relationship between the Pilgrims and the Indians and model not hostility and hatred but brotherly love. As the psalmist notes, a willingness to get along with others makes for a pleasant and peaceful life.

adapted from How Now Shall We Live? Devotional by Charles Colson (Tyndale) pp 631-32 "

[best]

Some truth some untruth.

The Mass Bay Colony was mostly made up of Pilgrims. There were a few on the ship that only came over to the new land in an attempt to gain riches.
One or two bad apples seem to have spoiled the whole barrel...or did they?
Only on the front pages of the newspaper, not in real life though. Yes the pilgrims and natives did get along just fine. Those who came later plus the one or two from the Mayflower are where the bad press comes from.

We as a Christian group get blamed when one who calls themself a Christian does wrong. Happens in just about any group as well. One bad apple pulls the whole group down.

Makes for one more reason, we as Christians should be all the more vigilant and watchful of our own behavior (Me, myself, what am I doing or not doing)

Because of the bad apples in history, Plymouth tends to be a place of protest from time to time around this time of year. Life still goes on. History can't be changed...what happened, happened. Plymouth is still a place of celibration for those seeking to find the truth.
(40 minutes from my house)

[sugarssweetpea]

Sunday, November 19

This week's promise: God blesses those who seek after him

How often do you ask God to hurry?

"O Lord, I am calling to you. Please hurry! Listen when I cry to you for help! Accept my prayer as incense offered to you, and my upraised hands as an evening offering.

Psalm 141:1-2 NLT
"


The Second Thanksgiving

"The year was 1623. The Pilgrims had been in the New World for two and half years. The first Thanksgiving of 1621 was only a memory by this time because this summer's drought was jeopardizing everything. Not even the Indians could remember anything like it. The settlers had planted more corn than before, but without any rainfall, there would be no harvest. Daily they had prayed that God would send rain, but he hadn't answered. As the psalmist did in Psalm 141:1, they were begging God to hurry.

Finally, the settlers set aside an entire day for prayer and worship. As they went for worship, the "heavens were as clear and the drought as like to continue as it ever was," yet when they left the meeting, "the weather was overcast, the clouds gathered on all sides." For the next 14 days there were "moderate showers of rain," according to Edward Winslow, one of the Pilgrims.

The Indians watched and were amazed at how the God of the new settlers had answered their prayers, and that year, after the harvest, a second Thanksgiving was celebrated with the Indians joining in as well.

"Hurry up, Lord," we often prod, wondering why the Almighty doesn't seem to be in as much of a rush as we are. Sometimes we need to set our watches to his clock.

from The One Year® Book of Psalms with devotionals by William J. Petersen and Randy Petersen (Tyndale) entry for November 22"


How often I have to remind myself that it is God's timing that is perfect, not mine. ~ SSP

[sugarssweetpea]

I agree, Best. I DEFINATELY need to keep a closer eye on me & what I am doing instead of them and what they are doing.