Thanksgiving Day as a Prayer Filled Holiday

Thanksgiving is unique among holidays celebrated in the United States. It’s not a religious holiday in the same way as Easter and Christmas. It’s not like Independence Day, Memorial Day, or Labor Day. Thanksgiving is distinctive to America and originated under unusual circumstances. Thanksgiving prayer title slide

In 1621 fifty-six British pilgrims, along with ninety-one Native Americans from the Wampanoag tribe gathered together for a three-day celebration. The festivities included food, conversations, games, and prayers.

Many families celebrate this national holiday in a similar way. We join with extended family and friends to catch up on the latest news, eat way too much food, and watch more football than we normally do. But the day is often missing something important. Many Americans forget what the primary reason was for the pilgrims and Native Americans to gather for this celebration.

The First Thanksgiving celebration

Oil painting of Thanksgiving — The first Thanksgiving celebration was generous but limited.

The pilgrims didn’t celebrate out of an abundance. It’s true they ate duck, geese, venison, and probably wild turkey. There was no flour, so they didn’t have pumpkin pie or gravy. Instead, they ate boiled pumpkin. There were no domesticated cattle, so dairy products like cheese, milk, and butter weren’t available. Apple cider wasn’t on the menu and they refused to eat potatoes thinking they were poisonous. The meal was likely rounded off with berries, fruit, plums, watercress, fish and clams, and lobster (Europeans thought lobster was only fit for the poor).

The pilgrims also didn’t celebrate finding a new easy life. The trip across the Atlantic Ocean was no joy ride. And trying to establish a settlement in the new world was extremely difficult. The Mayflower ship carried a group of English Separatists who were escaping persecution for their faith. And staying healthy and alive in the new world proved to be a deadly challenge for a large portion of their struggling group. In the new colony, there were more shallow graves than huts as forty-six of the original 102 hopefuls died within the first year of arriving at Plymouth Rock.

Thanksgiving was a festival that included prayer

The focus of their celebration wasn’t the abundance of food or a new easy way of living. And yet, they gathered to celebrate God’s goodness. The first Thanksgiving feast was a celebration of gratefulness for God’s mercy. Interestingly, out of the four main activities during the first Thanksgiving celebration, only three remain today. We eat, talk, and play games, but prayer is all but forgotten.

Child praying — Native Americans learned about God as they saw the pilgrims pray.

It was during the times of prayer and worship that the Native Americans heard and saw the Pilgrims’ faith in action. The pilgrims talked to God assuming there was a being who was listening and willing to respond. The Native Americans heard the pilgrims use the name of God as though they knew him personally. They called God their “Father who was in heaven” and they called on and acknowledged that Jesus Christ was his Son and their Savior. To a people who held to animistic practices, these were strange and new ideas.

This year, let’s celebrate Thanksgiving Day by acknowledging the original intentions of the Pilgrims and their biblical value of giving God’s thanks in all things. Let’s include times of speaking to Jesus Christ. He was the one whom the Pilgrims expressed their gratitude to and in whom they trusted with their lives and their afterlife.

Do more than say grace over your Thanksgiving Day meal this year. That’s important. Saying grace is a way of acknowledging to God that this is his food and that he is inviting you to his meal and sharing his sustenance with you and your family. But let’s do more than have a cursory prayer for the food. Let’s actually add prayer as a key element to the celebrations. How can we do that?

Recover the main purpose of Thanksgiving

Bible page — Pray, give testimonies of God’s grace, and read Scriptures on Thanksgiving Day.

It’s not hard to recover the original meaning of the first Thanksgiving meal. First, set aside some time before, during, or after the meal for everyone to express something they are thankful for to God. Let everyone have a moment to say “thank you God for …” This is a great way to focus on God and for each person to consider the LORD’s daily graciousness to them.

Second, click the link below and download the Thanksgiving prayer that I will be praying with my family before the meal is served. I am encouraging the families in my church to do the same. Either use your own written prayer or a spontaneous prayer or use the one below. It doesn’t matter. The important thing is to add back into the mix thankful prays on Thanksgiving Day. It’s exciting to think that every family in our church will be praying aloud the same prayer of gratitude throughout the day.

Click here for the prayer. Download and print it. Or, rewrite it and make it your own and pray that prayer with a sincere and appreciative heart.

Have a wonderful Thanksgiving Day with those you love. And don’t forget to pray.