Today's promise: God blesses those who
seek after Him
What Thanksgiving should
be
"How wonderful it
is, how pleasant when brothers live together in harmony!"
Psalm 133:1 NLT
Fighting historical vandalism
In an article in Focus
on the Family's Citizen magazine, Douglas Phillips describes how he took
his family to Plymouth, Massachusetts, a few years ago and was shocked at what
he found. Atop Cole's Hill, the burial ground for Pilgrims who died that first
hard winter, Phillips was startled to see a city truck pull up and men pile out
carrying shovels. They told Phillips the city was placing a new monument.
"Most revolutions are staged at night," Phillips wrote, so he wasn't surprised the next day to find stone markers all over Plymouth designating Thanksgiving as a day of mourning — a day to recall how the Pilgrims murdered and stole from their Indian neighbors. That afternoon, demonstrators — mostly white college kids — celebrated their victory by defacing the traditional monuments. Plymouth had transformed a tale of religious freedom into a story of genocide.
The historical reality is totally different. While it's true that later settlers abused the Native Americans, the Pilgrims and the Wampanoag Indians lived together in peace for 50 years. They signed covenants, bought and sold property, and fought against mutual enemies.
The modern obsession with group identity and victimhood encourages us to see those assigned to other groups as our enemies. When we interact with them, we ought to recall the relationship between the Pilgrims and the Indians and model not hostility and hatred but brotherly love. As the psalmist notes, a willingness to get along with others makes for a pleasant and peaceful life.
Adapted from How Now Shall We Live? Devotional by Charles Colson (Tyndale) pp 631-32
"Most revolutions are staged at night," Phillips wrote, so he wasn't surprised the next day to find stone markers all over Plymouth designating Thanksgiving as a day of mourning — a day to recall how the Pilgrims murdered and stole from their Indian neighbors. That afternoon, demonstrators — mostly white college kids — celebrated their victory by defacing the traditional monuments. Plymouth had transformed a tale of religious freedom into a story of genocide.
The historical reality is totally different. While it's true that later settlers abused the Native Americans, the Pilgrims and the Wampanoag Indians lived together in peace for 50 years. They signed covenants, bought and sold property, and fought against mutual enemies.
The modern obsession with group identity and victimhood encourages us to see those assigned to other groups as our enemies. When we interact with them, we ought to recall the relationship between the Pilgrims and the Indians and model not hostility and hatred but brotherly love. As the psalmist notes, a willingness to get along with others makes for a pleasant and peaceful life.
Adapted from How Now Shall We Live? Devotional by Charles Colson (Tyndale) pp 631-32
Content is derived
from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation and other publications of Tyndale
Publishing House
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