Why Our Nation Should Give Thanks

Gratitude takes the focus off ourselves and recognizes our many blessings

There is a great tradition in the United States of our presidents issuing Thanksgiving Proclamations. It is fitting that Americans pause to give thanks because, despite all the naysayers, we have a great deal to be grateful for. 

First and foremost is our freedom. We believe humans are born free. They have value and worth because we are made by God. We can use our freedom for good or evil, for others, or ourselves. The moral law – or God – holds us accountable for how we use our freedom. Our choices can be wise and good if we build them on moral truths found in revelation and human reason.  

Thanksgiving is a time to be grateful for our freedom and to remember those who have used their freedom unselfishly for our good. It would also be a good time for each of us to reflect on what we have been blessed with and commit ourselves to using our freedom for the good of others. 

George Washington issued the first presidential proclamation on Thanksgiving. He proclaimed:

“Now therefore I do recommend and assign Thursday the 26th day of November next to be devoted by the People of these States to the service of that great and glorious Being, who is the beneficent Author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be—That we may then all unite in rendering unto him our sincere and humble thanks—for his kind care and protection of the People of this Country previous to their becoming a Nation—for the signal and manifold mercies, and the favorable interpositions of his Providence which we experienced in the course and conclusion of the late war—for the great degree of tranquility, union, and plenty, which we have since enjoyed—for the peaceable and rational manner, in which we have been enabled to establish constitutions of government for our safety and happiness, and particularly the national One now lately instituted—for the civil and religious liberty with which we are blessed; and the means we have of acquiring and diffusing useful knowledge; and in general for all the great and various favors which he hath been pleased to confer upon us.

And also that we may then unite in most humbly offering our prayers and supplications to the great Lord and Ruler of Nations and beseech him to pardon our national and other transgressions—to enable us all, whether in public or private stations, to perform our several and relative duties properly and punctually—to render our national government a blessing to all the people, by constantly being a Government of wise, just, and constitutional laws, discreetly and faithfully executed and obeyed—to protect and guide all Sovereigns and Nations (especially such as have shewn kindness unto us) and to bless them with good government, peace, and concord—To promote the knowledge and practice of true religion and virtue, and the increase of science among them and us—and generally to grant unto all Mankind such a degree of temporal prosperity as he alone knows to be best.”

In his proclamation, Washington recognized America’s many blessings from God, starting with the success of the American Revolution. As Benjamin Franklin said a few years earlier:

“And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without His notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without His aid? We have been assured, Sir, in the sacred writings that ‘except the Lord build they labor in vain that build it.’ I firmly believe this, and I also believe that without His concurring aid, we shall succeed in this political building no better than the Builders of Babel: We shall be divided by our little partial local interests; our projects will be confounded, and we ourselves shall be become a reproach and a bye word down to future age.”

Indeed, our current government may strongly resemble the Tower of Babel – lots of noise with no progress. Franklin and Washington saw the uniting influence of giving thanks to God. And while that thanks was well placed, they also recognized that God was a source of accountability for our national actions. 

In the church I attend, we have a prayer of general confession, where we ask forgiveness for the things we have done but also for the things we have left undone. Sins of omission are as serious as sins we actively commit. This can be true of nations as well. 

Lincoln’s proclamation during the Civil War pointed to both sins. He pointed out that slavery was a sin that had brought us to war, but that indifference to slavery was also a sin. Most Americans did nothing in the face of slavery until the war, where 600,000 people died to end the abomination.  

In today’s world, we find ourselves helping other nations to protect their freedom and human dignity. Russia’s Vladimir Putin has assassinated political opponents, jailed dissidents, and waged cruel war in Syria and Ukraine. He has deprived the Russian people of their freedom while attempting to steal the freedom of the Ukrainian people. His actions are evil, but it would also be a sin of omission if we, with our great capabilities, did nothing to stop him. Yes, for many reasons, helping Ukraine is in our national interests, but there is also a moral imperative to defend freedom for ourselves and others.

The same is true in Israel. Following the brutal attacks by Hamas on women, children, men, the elderly, and even those not even born yet, it was our duty to help a free nation survive. And yet, we see deep opposition to helping both Ukraine and Israel right here in the United States. It is almost as if some of us have lost our ability to recognize evil.

That has consequences. If you cannot recognize what is obviously evil, how can you hope to recognize what is good? And herein lies our national problem. If we have rejected the accountability from the Moral Law, then it is easy to make excuses for evil actions. Why? Because if there is no Moral Law – if there is no God – then there is no right and wrong, merely the rule of might. If it is not wrong for Hamas to kill a pregnant woman and cut her unborn child out of her womb, then what else is not wrong? Just about anything. And in our post-Christian country, we precisely see that. If you can develop some narrative to justify your position, you can make anyone seem “good” or “evil.” This is the essence of postmodernism: if you are not accountable to a higher standard, then your definition of truth becomes whatever suits your own needs or, in the case of politics, whatever helps you gain power. 

If there is no moral law and objective truths, then there are no moral boundaries and no anchor by which we can make common choices. Instead, our anchor becomes the memory of what was once known by our ancestors until even that fades away.

Gratitude helps prevent this hijacking of the common beliefs that have long held our nation together. Instead of thinking of ourselves or our desires for power, we are compelled to think of others and the good they have done that benefited us. Thanksgiving is inherently unselfish because it puts our focus on the things above and the people around us who have done good things for us.  

Lincoln’s Thanksgiving Proclamation was issued just months after the brutal battle of Gettysburg and well before Union victory was assured. In it, he still finds reasons to be grateful despite the war but also recognizes and repents the national sins that led to the war. 

“The year that is drawing towards its close has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies. To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the source from which they come, others have been added, which are of so extraordinary a nature that they cannot fail to penetrate and soften even the heart which is habitually insensible to the ever-watchful Providence of Almighty God. 

In the midst of a civil war of unequalled magnitude and severity, which has sometimes seemed to foreign States to invite and provoke their aggression, peace has been preserved with all nations, the order has been maintained, the laws have been respected and obeyed, and harmony has prevailed everywhere except in the theatre of military conflict; while that theatre has been greatly contracted by the advancing armies and navies of the Union ...

No human counsel hath devised nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy. 

It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverently, and gratefully acknowledged as with one heart and one voice by the whole American People. I do therefore invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next, as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens. And I recommend to them that while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverances and blessings, they also do, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to His tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty Hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquility, and Union.”

In giving thanks, these leaders acknowledged that we were not perfect and that our national sins had caused much suffering. But they also understood the power of gratitude as a unifying act to unite Americans. In one of his Thanksgiving messages, Ronald Reagan said,

“Although we are a pluralistic society, the giving of thanks can be a true bond of unity among our people. We can unite in gratitude for our individual freedoms and individual faiths. We can be united in gratitude for our nation’s peace and prosperity when so many in this world have neither.”

This Thanksgiving, let us be grateful for our freedom and the many blessings that freedom has provided us. At the very least, let us acknowledge the need for a common moral framework that defines our expectations of ourselves and others and gives us cause to be grateful to those who have sacrificed on our behalf.  

We forget that freedom and democracy are not the natural state of human nature. Without moral boundaries, people are subject to the tyranny of the state and the strength and power of others. 

The idea that everyone has rights and dignity, even the weakest among us, acknowledges that there are things more important than our own self-interests and the survival of the strongest.  This is the essence of the American idea.

Let’s thank God for our freedom and for the United States. We are not without our faults, but as long as we have the light to see right and wrong, we may still grow toward the good and thwart what is evil.