I like Thanksgiving, but it’s an odd holiday. It is religious in its roots and significance, but it isn’t a church holy day. The church calendar doesn’t set the date. It’s set by the various countries that observe it–second Monday in October in Canada, the fourth Thursday in November in the U.S.

One of my favorite Thanksgiving songs, “We Gather Together to Ask the Lord’s Blessing,” isn’t exactly a Thanksgiving song. It actually celebrates the freeing of the Netherlands from Spain in the 16th century. Maybe the odd history explains why it doesn’t appear in Lutheran hymnals. I learned the song in public school, not at church.

I never quite understood the first stanza as translated by Theodore Baker.

We gather together to ask the Lord’s blessing;
He chastens and hastens His will to make known.
The wicked oppressing now cease from distressing.
Sing praises to His Name; He forgets not His own.

That chastening and hastening along with ceasing from distressing never made much sense to me, but I sang it with gusto with my class at the school assembly. Maybe it’s not a bad thing not to know exactly what the words mean because giving thanks is more a matter of the heart than the intellect.

This Thanksgiving you can count your blessings and thank God for them or maybe read about the Pilgrims and try to sense their gratitude or maybe just sing a favorite Thanksgiving song. Whatever you do, give thanks to God in all things.

Read Psalm 100 and remember: God loves YOU unconditionally.

Wayne