What Is The Hullabaloo About Thanksgiving In Bayelsa State? 

WISDOM ONIEKPAR IKULI

The hearts of some persons are so bitter and negative such that they read meaning to everything. In their bitterness, they tend to think or believe that everyone else have the same negative mindsets.

As Christians or even traditional worshippers, we all acknowledge the indispensable and irreplaceable position of Almighty God, (a Supreme Being) in our lives.

As humans eat in order to survive and also oil our cars to make the engine functional, Thanksgiving creates an intimate relationship between us, and God. The immediate result of the above intimate relationship attracts more favour and blessings.

Thanksgiving is so important that every human with right thinking begins the day and almost all activities with prayer of Thanksgiving.

It is so because gratitude is a guarantee for more blessings, while ingratitude closes doors of opportunities and also leads to retrogression, stagnation, lack, and even destruction.

“Thanksgiving in the Bible is a fundamental, command-based, and continuous act of worship, representing a lifestyle of gratitude rather than a single event. It is described as essential for approaching God, a declaration of His goodness, and a requirement in “all circumstances” (1 Thess 5:18). It serves as a, spiritual, sacrifice, fostering, faith and, intimacy with, God”.

The Bible makes us understand that in all things, we should give God thanks. It did not create an exemption. So, in good and bad times, in joy and happiness, pains, mourning, and sorrow. We should learn to give God all the glory.

I am happy that the different groups and even individuals who have written against thankgivings in Bayelsa State at this period of mourning have not said that anyone organized an elaborate party or banquet for merriment. They all wrote about Thanksgiving at a moment of state mourning.

Every human has one form of battle he or she is battling, whether physical, emotional, or spiritual. The above applies to kingdoms. There are circumstances in which negative events and occurrences make communities, clans, and kingdoms to enter into covenants with promises of periodic Thanksgiving.

Faithful and religious adherence to covenants always attract unprecedented peace, blessings, and prosperity, while disobedience leads to retrogression, stagnation, and even unimaginable destruction.

Thanksgiving is so sacred and sacrosanct that even the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) always shifts Bayelsa State Governorship election and all attendant activities that clash with the Bayelsa State Thanksgiving Day that holds on 2nd November annually.

Since the inception of the annual Bayelsa State Thanksgiving, the state is moving from glory to glory. Because of the bountiful testimonies that comes with it, the Bayelsa State Government is not ready to sacrifice such divine source of unquantifiable blessings for any other consideration.

The above is the exact story of many kingdoms and even individuals. Such covenant Thanksgiving avert calamities and also guarantees immeasurable blessings.

Over time, it has become a conventional and almost institutionalized practice by Christians to do family Thanksgiving after every burial.

If we go by the illogical arguments and protests by some individuals and groups, then families are not supposed to do Thanksgiving since they just buried their loved ones.

The covenant of Thanksgiving can be likened to the rhetorical question that Apostle Paul asked in the book of Romans 8:38-39, “what can separate me from the love of God, neither death, tribulations, life, angels, rulers, things present, things to come, powers, height, depth, nor anything else”.

Thanksgiving is so important that while it helps to guarantee socio-economic and political security and prosperity for the living, it also guarantees eternal peace and rest for the dead either in purgatory or heaven. So everyone that knows the secret of Thanksgiving, like David will prioritize it at all times and in all situations and circumstances and not in selective circumstances.

In concluding this piece, I wish to admonish all Bayelsans to prioritize Thanksgiving, which is the secret of power, wealth, and all successes.

– Hon. Wisdom Oniekpar Ikuli