Take a penny out of your purse and look at it as we consider Thanksgiving. What are things we see on a penny that prompt us to give thanks?

Have we ever realized how precious our Liberty is? We are free to vote tomorrow and we can make real choices. Not like Iraq where 100 % of the people voted for Saddam Hussein to continue leading them, because they feared if they voted against him that they would be executed. His police guard control is so powerful that if one vote against him showed up in a precinct, he would not hesitate to kill ALL the people of that place in order to eliminate the one dissenter.

We were free to worship yesterday in the church, synagogue or mosque of our choice -- or even to not to worship at all. In many countries of the world to worship in any way not allowed by the government is to invite arrest, detainment, even torture and death. To meet in a Christian church in Pakistan is to be in danger of assault and death. To worship in anything other than the propaganda church buildings in North Korea is to invite persecution and death, or be starved by exemption from the relief supplies supplied by the Christian nations of the world for the starving Korean people. To be a Christian child in southern Sudan is to be susceptible to being kidnapped and sold as a slave to Arab slave-owners. Some children who will not change their religion are tied to camel’s feet. Then in a gruesome race the child is dragged to its death to “entertain” its owner.

We were free to Feed ourselves with an abundance of food at any time of the day we felt hungry. We were not restricted to eating only in the dark hours of the day as our Muslim neighbors do during Ramadan. We also were able to have plenty of food, not restricted to a handful of meal to last the day, augmented by what edible weeds we can find, like the drought-starved people of Africa.

These are only a few of the Freedoms we have Liberty to enjoy. Let the Liberty on our pennies remind us of them.

Thanksgiving was proclaimed in 1789 by our first President, George Washington. His proclamation begins:

Now, therefore, I do recommend and assign Thursday, the 26th day of November next, to be devoted by the people of these States to the service of that great and glorious Being who is the beneficent author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be; that we may then all unite in rendering unto Him our sincere and humble thanks for His kind care and protection of the people of this country previous to their becoming a nation...

and he continued delineating specific things to be thankful for.

Many presidents made Thanksgiving proclamations, including Abraham Lincoln in the midst of the Civil War in 1863. Lincoln asked for the people to both praise God and to be in penitence for their sins. But it was Franklin D. Roosevelt, who in the midst of World War 2, established Thanksgiving as a federal holiday, who caused it to be regularly celebrated.

The Latin phrase meaning “out of Many One.” It refers to the many nationalities that make up our nation and the several states that constitute the United States of America. It should remind us of the Peace Treaty that the Pilgrim fathers made with Massasoit in 1621 which would be an example to diverse people today. Let me read you its provisions:

Because this agreement was never broken, the Wam-pan-O-ag and the Pilgrims lived in peaceful co-existence, even when other native American tribes attacked the settlers. I wish our later actions toward the native Americans and our incoming immigrant peoples were as just as this one. Can we learn to be thankful for every group of people who have contributed to our country?

Can we respect and honor descendents of

the native Americans whose lands we appropriated?

the descendents of the Africans whom we enslaved and separated by their color?

the immigrants from Ireland, Italy, Russia, China, Korea, Mexico and scores of other countries who long to share in our prosperity and freedom and sacrifice to come here, legally or illegally?

Truly our nation is made of many peoples; may our nation become ONE for there is ONE GOD.

IN GOD WE TRUST

Despite the present secularization of our society and popular opposition to Christian truth, the motto “In God we Trust” is still on our coins and currency. The apostle Paul speaking to the Greeks at the marketplace reminded them that they had a God whom they did not know, yet he still remained sovereign over them. Paul says in Acts 17:23-26

As I came through your city and as I saw the objects of your worship, I found among them an altar with the inscription, ‘To the Unknown God.’ So then, what you worship and do not know, this I preach to you. God, who made the universe and everything in it, this God is Lord of heaven and earth and does not dwell in temples made with hands; nor is He served by the hands of men, as if He needed anything, but He Himself gives to all life and breath and all things. He made of one every race of men to dwell on all the face of the earth... He made men so that they might search for God, if they might perchance feel after him and find Him; and indeed He is not far from any one of us. For in Him we live and move and have our being.

The purpose of our very being is to give Thanks to God. We can truly Trust Him only when we trust the One He has sent to be our Savior and entrance to God. Paul went on to preach Jesus Christ to the Athenians. We need to continue to preach Jesus Christ to our society wherever we can, whether or not it brings us persecution. That is why one of the most important things on the penny is

ONE CENT

for if we understand it as spelled a little differently, ONE SENT with an “S” it tells us who we are for God’s kingdom. Each of us is ONE SENT to share the message of faith in God and the Liberty and Unity that are the result. Every time you see a penny remember and thank God for these thoughts.

These thoughts were expressed to the Arizona Christian Women's Missionary Society at their November 2002 meeting by Lester LeMay