Lincoln’s Message for Today

Today is Thanksgiving Day. This annual celebration became a national holiday during Abraham Lincoln’s administration in 1863, when he proclaimed it amid the Civil War, urging citizens to recognize God’s blessings despite the nation being torn apart and calling them to pray for the healing of “the wounds of the nation.” Though more than 160 years have passed since Lincoln’s proclamation, his words remain powerfully relevant to America in 2025.

Watch the national news for any period of time and the level of acrimony, vitriol, and hostility is shocking; this bitterness is like shots fired at the heart of America. I’m not talking about particular ideologies or specific individuals, because we see this caustic language and behavior across the political spectrum, including many, I’m sad to say, within the Christian church—and that should not be.

In his letter to the Philippians, Paul writes, “Let your reasonableness be known to everyone.” Some translations render this word as “gentleness.” In the original Greek, the word points to a temperament that is seasoned, mature, and levelheaded—not harsh but mild—willing to yield strict rights, slow to take offense, and generally treating others with decency and kindness. Could today’s rhetoric in the news and online be any further from this standard?

So today, when you gather with family members whose company you might or might not always enjoy, treat them with gentleness and kindness.

Now, some of you may be thinking, “But you don’t know how they treat me.” Well, no matter how poorly you have been treated or how disrespectfully you have been spoken to in the past, you still have to come back to this verse: “If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone” (Romans 12:18).

You might read that and think, “Well, it’s not possible for me to live at peace with my difficult mother-in-law,” but don’t ignore that we’re told to live at peace with people “as far as it depends on you.”

In practice, that means you refuse to respond to anger and bitterness in kind. As anyone who has ever parented a toddler or a teenager can tell you, you can’t really control anybody else. You can only control you. The Bible tells us God is full of love, and this love is patient and kind.

If you are a beneficiary of God’s grace, consider how much you have been forgiven, and then apply that same grace to others—around the dinner table today, in the morning when you’re in line for coffee, or during the melee that can be Black Friday.

Finally, let me express my appreciation to all of you who have read and followed my posts. I am in awe that this community has grown to over 2,000 followers in less than a month.

So thank you—and thank You, God.

. . . and that’s what I know today.