The Happiness of A Thankful Heart

The Happiness of a Thankful Heart Psalm 26:7

The Pilgrim Proclamation: Inasmuch as the great Father has given us this year an abundant harvest of Indian corn, wheat, beans, squashes, and garden vegetables, and has made the forests to abound with game and the sea with fish and clams, and inasmuch as He has protected us from the ravages of the savages, has spared us from pestilence and disease, has granted us freedom to worship God according to the dictates of our own conscience; now, I, your magistrate, do proclaim that all ye Pilgrims, with your wives and little ones, do gather at ye meeting house, on ye hill, between the hours of 9 and 12 in the day time, on Thursday, November ye 29th of the year of our Lord one thousand six hundred and twenty-three, and the third year since ye Pilgrims landed on ye Pilgrim Rock, there to listen to ye pastor, and render thanksgiving to ye Almighty God for all His blessings. ~~ William Bradford, governor of the Plymouth Colony, 1623 It has seemed to me fit and proper that [the gifts of God] should be solemnly, reverently, and gratefully acknowledged with one heart and one voice by the whole American people. I do, therefore, invite my fellow citizens . . . 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. -Thanksgiving proclamation, 1863 ~~ Abraham Lincoln http://www.seekfind.net/Thankfulness.html

1. Thanksgiving is healthiness – according to the research of Dr. Robert Emmons, a University of California professor and author of “Thanks!” How The New Science of Gratitude can make you Happier” gratitude improves emotional and physical health. Dr. Emmons says that thanksgiving is a “chosen attitude” and, “We must be willing to recognize and acknowledge that we are the recipients of an unearned benefit. http://www.vvdailypress.com/articles/gratitude-15718-happiness-improves.html

2. Thanksgiving is Happiness - There was an old man who went door to door selling vegetables. He often knocked the door of a wealthy couple to sell vegetables. The couple one day realized that the man was partially blind and also very poor. He wore odd shoes that looked very shabby. He lived just down the lane. They quietly dropped a bag of shoes late night at his door. Two days later, the old man knocked at the couple’s door, smiling, he said “Sir, I am thankful to God. He has been so good to me. Someone dropped a bag full of shoes at my door two days ago”. The old man continued “Sir, I’m even more thankful to God for one more thing. He showed me poor people who never had shoes on their feet and I gave away these shoes to them”. http://www.deccanherald.com/content/198729/thankfulness-happiness.html

I was touched while reading this months issue of God’s revivalist of how they used to have the Thanksgivign Dinners on the Hilltop, Uncle Buddie Robinson was one of the evangelists one year and wrote an article on it, telling how those kids some of them brought right off the street were given a good service, a good thanksgiving meal with all the trimmings, a good hat coat and sometimes gloves, and how happy they were, one young boy would set there by his little brother and take a bite of food and hug up his little brother take a bite of food and hug up his little brother over and over he did that he was so thankful and so happy he hardly knew what to do with his self.

3. Thanksgiving Is Godliness

a. I have been trying to show us from the Bible that thanksgiving is not only expected but comanded of the Children of God. What a responsiblility is ours. To have a happy, thankful heart.

It is so easy for us to get caught up in looking at what we are having to do without, or we have so much that we take all that we have for granted. Godliness says “Thank You Lord for everything”

Some tips to thankfulness

1. Keep a thanksgiving journal (everyday write about things you are thankful for)

2. Every morning before or as soon as you get out of bed think of five things you are thankful for

3. Be quick to say thanks for things