This Thanksgiving

I know traditionally at this time of year, our focus is on food. Whether it be the hours spent preparing the mounds of mashed potatoes, green-bean casserole, golden turkeys, and pumpkin pies or the consumption of said food. Either way the focus is on food. Also we might see pictures of of little happy women in black dresses holding a bit of "Traditional Thanksgiving Day Food" while men smiling in tall strange black hats stand next to their so very friendly looking Indian buddies. If your a little bit more of a history buff of paid attention to history in school, you might know more about the Mayflower and its occupants. How the Pilgrims came over from Holland, how so many died that first winter, the trials they had to endure and how at the end of the "Thanksgiving Story" God blessed the Pilgrims with a bountiful harvest.

Today however, I don't want to focus on those to two points. But rather how the Pilgrims set off to brave the dangers both known and those yet unknown, to advance the kingdom of God here on earth. The following is a quote from Bradford's book Of "Plymouth Plantation", after going through a list of reasons why the Pilgrims decided to leave, he says "Last and not least, they cherished the great hope and inward zeal for laying good foundations, or at least of making someway towards it, for the propagation and advance of the gospel of the kingdom of Christ in the remote parts of the world, even though they should be but stepping stones to others in the performance of so great a work." The Pilgrims where willing to lay down their lives even if it was to be but the stepping stones to so great a work as the advancing of God's kingdom. When told about the dangers they might encounter "It was replied, that all great and honourable actions are accompanied with great difficulties, and must be both met and overcome with answerable courage. It was granted the dangers were great, but not desperate, the difficulties were many, but not invincible...and all of them, through the help of God, by both fortitude and patience, might either be borne or overcome."

So this Thanksgiving I want to ask, Do we view the task of advancing God's kingdom, a high and honourable calling as the Pilgrims did, one that we would be willing to give our lives for? No, its true that most of us will not sail to uncharted lands and help to birth a new country, or have to risk our lives in doing so. But is not letting go of our own wants and desires and giving our time in a way, the same thing as giving our lives for the advancement of God's kingdom? I believe so. I encourage you to bravely trust God in whatever trials you may encounter, while being a stepping stone in the in the great and truly honouable task that God has set before all of His people of advancing His kingdom here on earth.

Happy Thanksgiving