It is good that the Thanksgiving holiday comes after the national elections. We will have time to digest all the results and settle ourselves to what might be a new reality.

The original Thanksgiving was no different. Those immigrant settlers left the comfort of home to avail themselves of new opportunity. It was difficult, but worth it. Those early Americans chose to risk everything for a chance at a degree of freedom. The tyranny of government had complicated their lives and squelched their liberty.

It is easy to fall into the trap of thinking that “somebody should take care of me,” but the awful price of that level of dependence saps our souls.

It is also easy to slip the moorings of responsibility. None of us want to be told what to do. We want to feel like we are the masters of our fate. The truth is, there are moral absolutes. Left to ourselves, we would slide into the abyss of carelessness and irresponsibility.

Any time our push for freedom impinges on the rights of another, we have crossed the line. The rights of another must include the overruling guidance and protection of Almighty God. One can choose to deny God, but you can never escape the reality of that voice within you that cries out for nurture and acceptance.

We should be thankful that, through the ages and through God’s providence, God has raised up certain people to deliver those of us who could not deliver ourselves. God chose Moses against conventional wisdom. Moses was a murderer and an exile, yet he was God’s man for a critical time and led God’s people forth from the slavery and debauchery of false gods.

There have been others. Martin Luther stood when nobody else would and reformed a culture. Abraham Lincoln knew in his heart that one person should never own another person and set out to make it right. The “making it right” seemed to create more chaos than what was before. It took time to see the wisdom and rightness of allowing people the freedom to pursue their dream.

It is possible that this Thanksgiving we can be thankful that, once again, the steep descent into the results of too much government, too much social engineering and too much freedom at the expense of moral absolutes might be slowed down. Will the course turn to a national righteousness? Maybe not completely, but if there is a chance, we must take it.

God bless America, whose Founding Fathers, under the mighty hand of God, instituted a nation that literally has led the world in reversing tyranny. Look around and look back; nobody else but America has delivered as much liberty and freedom as we have. It is time for that to make new roots in our land.
Dan Puckett works with road team operations at Life Action Ministries in Buchanan.