I'm Still Thankful

Tomorrow is already Thanksgiving. I’m not sure if that brings warm feelings or dread of the holiday season, but let’s talk about giving thanks right now.
 
I am personally thankful for many things. First and foremost, I am thankful for salvation in Christ. I am very thankful for a loving wife, amazing kids, and for living in this wonderful state. I am also thankful for Godly men and women who serve us in the state legislature and Congress. And I am very thankful for you, our faithful ministry partners around the state.
 
As Americans, we have a lot to be thankful for as well. We live in a country founded on biblical principles, which is a huge blessing. We have religious freedom, a society where hard work produces commensurate rewards, respectful dialog happens around contentious issues, Christianity is respected, and societal norms are shifting more toward biblical values every day.
 
Really? To some extent all those aforementioned items exist and we should certainly thank God for them. However, they are going away at an ever-increasing rate. The ending to “I am thankful for...” on these issues could soon become moot. They could be gone far faster than you or I can imagine.
 
I wrote the last four paragraphs in 2019 – two years ago. That was before the fateful Presidential election of 2020, before COVID and vaccine mandates, before riots in our cities, before CRT became an abbreviation we recognize.
 
Before everything.
 
So, what now? The assault on all we hold dear has never been greater. Nevertheless, we still have much to be thankful for. We live in a country where freedom is still greater than nearly every other country on earth. We have a definite majority of state legislators who respect biblical values and will defend them. Our country has never been more assertive to reclaim our conservative Christian values, meaning that many have been woken from their comfortable slumber and are now engaging in the fight. 
 
I guess the overriding theme here is to be thankful for what we have. Please continue to pray as we together fight for biblical values in the political arena. Please get involved at the grassroots level – run for that school board position, write that letter to the editor. Finally, please support organizations like ours who are fighting every day, when you simply don’t have the bandwidth to do so. 
 
We will be mailing our year-end donation appeal shortly. Please prayerfully consider giving your tax-exempt gift that will be matched dollar-for-dollar up to $20,000 to help us protect our values right here in North Dakota. 
 
I speculated two years ago that our freedoms, ability to express our views, respect for traditional norms that built this country, and other values we hold dear might be entirely gone very soon. Let’s make sure I was wrong.