Are You Useful Now?

A couple of days ago, I got a chance to watch Lincoln. Yet again, filmmaker Steven Spielberg helmed a story so enchanting and moving, it ought to awaken your unknown love for history. It was a beautiful masterpiece centered on Lincoln's life as a father, husband, friend and as the 16th president of the United States who marshaled the freedom of the slaves.

But for me, the scene that lingered long and vividly was the heated confrontation between father (Abe Lincoln) and his first born son, Robert. The civil war was poised to end and Robert has been steered away to enlist for war by sending him to Boston to become a lawyer.

While visiting soldiers who were injured, the stirrings in Robert's heart to be useful now came alive and burning. A momentary lapse in Lincoln's part, a slap against a son's defiance, furthered his son's desire to its boiling point. With or without permission, Robert enlisted his heart and life for war.

It's meaningful and moving and touching because I feel the same way. I don't want to be useful tomorrow, I want to be useful now. Not five years after but now.

Maybe we all go through this stage and season of self-doubt. We question our worth as a person based on how useful we are now. Are we doing what we always wanted to do? Are we living for something bigger than ourselves? Are we happy? Are we making a difference? Are we changing the world? Are we useful?

These are questions that are real and scary. If you answered yes, good for you. But a no echos the restlessness from within. It's a silent cry of desperation seeking freedom from the bondage of mediocrity and the common life. To be useful means to be important. It's a human desire common to all but only a handful achieves.

But what does it really mean to be useful? Only you can tell because your life is yours to live. You don't need to be president or a noble soldier to feel fulfilled. Just look around you, examine your motives and notice the little differences you are making on other people's lives.

Usefulness is all about perspective. As long as you are living your life according to how you were wired then that's useful. Birds fly because they were created with wings. Flowers bloom, the sun rises and sets, the moon beams at night and fishes swim. They are who and what they are because of their specific design. And you are who you are because God created you that way.

The moment you are feeling useless, go back to your creator. Only He can tell you what you were wired for.

Thanksgiving Day is not about the Perfect Turkey

Thanksgiving is not about the perfect turkey or is it? Everywhere in the web, articles upon articles, videos upon videos and recipes upon recipes, talk about how to make the perfect turkey. They are helpful, no question about that. But the spotlight has been on the turkey and not on the real essence of thanksgiving.

Poor thing!

As history would tell us, the "First Thanksgiving" event that Americans refer to is the one celebrated by the Pilgrims at Plymouth on 1621. They had a variety of food like fish, grains, wild fowl (including turkey), fruits and vegetables. The celebration lasted for three days eating and thanking God for all His blessings.

The Pilgrims at Plymouth 

But it was only in 1863 when Abraham Lincoln in the midst of the American Civil War and prompted by articles written by Sarah Josepha Hale proclaimed a national Thanksgiving Day. From then on, thanksgiving has been observed every last Thursday of November annually.

 An excerpt from President Abe Lincoln's Proclamation of Thanksgiving Day:

The year that is drawing towards its close, has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies. To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the source from which they come, others have been added, which are of so extraordinary a nature, that they cannot fail to penetrate and soften even the heart which is habitually insensible to the ever watchful providence of Almighty God.

Lincoln has said that in the midst of enjoying the bounty and blessings of life, we tend to forget that these are because of the providence of Almighty God. It seems to me that we keep on forgetting. Year after year, we fuss about the menu, about the turkey, the stuffing and dressing, the annual parade and along the way shoving the real essence of the celebration aside.

In the midst of a civil war of unequalled magnitude and severity, which has sometimes seemed to foreign States to invite and to provoke their aggression, peace has been preserved with all nations, order has been maintained, the laws have been respected and obeyed, and harmony has prevailed everywhere except in the theatre of military conflict; while that theatre has been greatly contracted by the advancing armies and navies of the Union.

Population has steadily increased, notwithstanding the waste that has been made in the camp, the siege and the battle-field; and the country, rejoicing in the consciousness of augmented strength and vigor, is permitted to expect continuance of years, with large increase of freedom.

They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy. It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverently and gratefully acknowledged as with one heart and voice by the whole American people.

Lincoln further encourage us to count the many blessings we are experiencing in spite of difficulties and problems. It was in the midst of civil war then and Lincoln urge America to rejoice in spite of the war and continue to be hopeful for the freedom that America soon will truly enjoy.

And I recommend to them that while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverances and blessings, they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to his tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty Hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquility and Union.

The food, dinner invitations, family gatherings, parade and the turkey have all become a part of the Thanksgiving custom. It creates a more celebratory atmosphere but even without it, we should always remember that Thanksgiving is ultimately, a day to give thanks. The moment that we prioritize our turkey more than cultivating an atmosphere and a culture of thankfulness then we may be celebrating Happy Dead, Roasted Bird Day than Happy Thanksgiving Day.

So forget about the perfect turkey for a while, go on ahead and say a prayer of thanks to God for He has been good.