At least, we used to. It seems that, more and more, the holiday is filled with the things of Thanksgiving while lacking its spirit.
Thanksgiving is increasingly becoming a secular celebration of generic gratitude, disconnected from the reality that gave it birth. We are losing the truth at the heart of the holiday.
Thanksgiving was created to remind the American people that our blessings come from Almighty God.
Psalm 107:1 says, "Give thanks to the Lord, for He is good. His faithful love endures forever." This is the spiritual foundation of the holiday. The earliest Americans believed this.
They did not give thanks because they felt sentimental. They gave thanks because they understood something deep and humbling. We are not entitled. We are indebted to a God who provides. Today, this idea feels foreign because our culture is shaped by entitlement and pride rather than gratitude and humility. But if we want national renewal, if we're going to regain the moral strength and character that once defined this country, then we must recover the heart of Thanksgiving.
A people who know they owe everything to God are a people capable of governing themselves. A nation that forgets God will also forget gratitude. Once gratitude disappears, purpose fades, and freedom soon follows.
It is simple: Making Thanksgiving Great Again will make tremendous strides towards Making America Great Again.
Unfortunately, some modern historians try to retell Thanksgiving as a simple harvest celebration or a moment of cultural cooperation. But that narrative is incomplete.
The historical record shows that Thanksgiving is an openly Christian holiday arising from the distinctly Christian worldview of the settlers of our great country.
Before the famous feast at Plymouth in 1621, the English settlers at Berkeley Hundred in Virginia declared a day of Thanksgiving in 1619. In fact, this was just one of many explicitly Christian feasts of giving thanks that were common practice.
They would explicitly thank God for His provision and, as early as 1619, pledged to keep the day annually for that purpose.
The Pilgrims at Plymouth also carried this practice of thankfulness. Their writings show that Thanksgiving was not just a once-a-year tradition. It was a posture of the heart.
When their crops failed, they called the community to prayer and fasting. When God provided food, brought peace, or gave relief from sickness, they called those days of Thanksgiving.
In both famine and abundance, they recognized the hand of God. It is a shame that it is not our common practice today.
The pilgrims at Plymouth buried half their community in that first winter before the famous feast of 1621. They endured sickness, starvation, and danger.
Yet in every deliverance, they stopped and acknowledged that they had survived only because God had been merciful.
The early American conviction was simple. Prosperity is never self-made. It is God given. Therefore, Thanksgiving is not optional. It is the proper response of a grateful people.
This is the proper understanding of things. We should seek to live grateful lives of humility. Human life is fragile and sustained by a Creator. Humility allows us to rely on our Creator and prevents us from being destroyed by our own pride.
And this understanding shaped national life for centuries. It was foundational to American greatness. Presidents from George Washington to Abraham Lincoln issued proclamations of Thanksgiving that sounded more like sermons than political speeches.
Washington's first national Thanksgiving proclamation in 1789 called on the nation to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God.
Lincoln, in the middle of the Civil War, urged Americans to repent of national sins and thank God for His mercies.
He warned that our blessings are so constant that we are prone to forget the Source from which they come. He was right, and it is exactly what we have done today.
In recent decades, Thanksgiving has been slowly stripped of its purpose. As America has drifted away from its Christian foundation, the holiday has been reduced to good feelings and good food.
The language of gratitude is still present, but it has been drained of meaning.
We now teach children to be grateful, but we often stop short of telling them to give thanks. This subtle shift matters.
Giving thanks requires an object of thanks. Gratitude without God becomes little more than emotional satisfaction. It allows people to feel positive without surrendering pride. It requires nothing of us.
But the heart of Thanksgiving is not emotional uplift. It is humbling ourselves. It is the admission that we owe our blessings to Someone greater than ourselves.
It is a recognition that we do not sustain our own lives. Even the breath in our lungs is a gift from the Lord.
Secular culture is uncomfortable with this truth because a culture devoted to self cannot tolerate dependence on God. A society that worships individual autonomy cannot celebrate a holiday that reminds us that we are creatures and not our own creators.
Yet America cannot survive on self-worship. No free nation can. People who believe they are self-created will eventually believe they are self-sufficient.
People who believe they are self-sufficient will eventually reject the idea of moral authority. And a people who reject moral authority inevitably lose freedom. This is how civilizations fall from within. The Pilgrims had very little in material terms, but they had a deep understanding of gratitude. In this sense, they were far richer than many Americans today.
One of the most destructive forces shaping our current national mood is entitlement. We live in an age where citizens believe they deserve everything.
They expect comfort without sacrifice and benefits without responsibility. This entitlement mindset has invaded our politics, our schools, and even our homes.
Thanksgiving exists to defeat that spirit. The act of giving thanks to God is a declaration of humility. It reminds us that blessings are not earned. They are entrusted.
When we give thanks, we reshape our hearts. A grateful people can be trusted with freedom. An entitled person cannot.
If America wants to regain its national strength and restore its sense of moral purpose, we must recover gratitude. Not the shallow gratitude of social media captions or corporate slogans. Real gratitude.
The kind that bows before God and says, God, You have been good to us. We do not deserve Your blessings, but You have given them anyway. Thank you, Lord."
And that is why Thanksgiving still has absolute power. It points us back to God. It reminds us of our humble beginning. It calls us to moral renewal. It trains our hearts for gratitude and self-government.
If we want to make America great again, we must make Thanksgiving great again. We must recover the courage to say openly what our ancestors believed deeply. God is the giver of every good gift. And a grateful nation is a strong nation.
