George Washington's Thanksgiving Proclamation

General Thanksgiving

By the PRESIDENT of the United States Of America

A PROCLAMATION

WHEREAS it is the duty of all nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey His will, to be grateful for His benefits, and humbly to implore His protection and favour; and Whereas both Houses of Congress have, by their joint committee, requested me "to recommend to the people of the United States a DAY OF PUBLICK THANSGIVING and PRAYER, to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many and signal favors of Almighty God, especially by affording them an opportunity peaceably to establish a form of government for their safety and happiness:"

NOW THEREFORE, I do recommend and affirm THURSDAY, the TWENTY-SIXTH DAY of NOVEMBER next, to be devoted by the people of the 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; for the final and manifold mercies and the favorable interpositions of His providence in the course and conclusion of the late war; for the great degree of tranquility, union, and plenty which we have since enjoyed;-- for the peaceable and rational manner in which we have been enable to establish Constitutions of government for our safety and happiness, and particularly the national one now lately instituted;-- for the civil and religious liberty with which we are blessed, and the means we have of acquiring and diffusing useful knowledge;-- and, in general, for all the great and various favours which He has been pleased to confer upon us.

And also, that we may then unite in most humbly offering our prayers and supplications to the great Lord and Ruler of Nations and beseech Him to pardon our national and other transgressions;-- to enable us all, whether in public or private stations, to perform our federal and relative duties properly and punctually; to render our National Government a blessing to all the people by constantly being a Government of wife, just, and constitutional laws, discreetly and faithfully executed and obeyed; to protect and guide all sovereigns and nations (especially such as have shown kindness unto us); and to bless them with good governments, peace, and concord; to promote the knowledge and practice of true religion and virtue, and the increase of science among them and us; and, generally to grant unto all mankind such a degree of temporal prosperity as he alone knows to be best.

GIVEN under my hand, at the city of New-York, the third day of October, in the year of our Lord, one thousand seven hundred and eighty-nine.

(signed) G. Washington

Source: The Massachusetts Centinel, Wednesday, October 14, 1789

Ethics Check

OK, it’s time to get down to some serious writing again!

I had a wake up call today from my boss. In a nutshell my boss told me that he had some concerns about my ethics. When your trying to live for Jesus and someone calls you on the carpet and wants to have a talk with you about your ethics you’d better pay attention. In my case I had strayed a little bit farther from the middle then I should have. In fact I was farther left of center then I even realized.

Today’s talk brought back to me the fact that when we drift off of center of where God wants us we normally do not drift a whole bunch at one time. Rather when we drift we do it a little at a time. A smidgen here, a little bit there, and so forth. The problem is that when we don’t crawl back up on the proverbial altar and get back in the center of where God wants us on a very regular basis it doesn’t take long and we can really be going the wrong way.

That’s what happened to me, I started getting a little bit off of center little by little and the next thing you know my boss is having an ethics talk with me. The good news is that I wasn’t having ethics problems with my customers be dishonest or anything. The bad news is that I was having ethics problems in the way I was treating my fellow employees. I know where I got off center.

There are a couple of guys I work with that have basically zero morals and I let their behavior affect me. One of the guys sells quite a few cars and he will do whatever he can to get your customer away from you. If your headed for a customer he will take off running and cut you off to get to the customer first. He will then tell you that he is exempt from the rules because he sells so many cars. My problem is that I let this guy get under my skin and that was wrong of me.

I had to take a step back today and reexamine where I’m at. I had to once again to make the decision that I’m going to let God fight my battles for me. I was wrong to try and pay back this guy for what he did to me. Like I said, my battle belongs to God. 1 Peter 3:9 says “Don’t repay evil for evil. Don’t retaliate with insults when people insult you. Instead, pay them back with a blessing. That is what God has called you to do, and he will bless you for it.”

The lesson learned today: Don’t repay evil with evil, rather do what’s right in the sight of God and he will bless you.

Be Blessed!!!

BIG SCOTT

RUN! RUN! RUN!

Wow, I can’t believe it! It’s been almost six weeks since my last blog update. Things have been going by at warp speed for the past month or so. With work I’ve been in training every morning, Monday through Friday for the past month. Then add to that I alternate working until either 7:30 p.m. or 9:00 p.m. every other night! When you’re working 65+ hours during the week you don’t have much time left to blog or much anything else for that matter!

This past month I’ve been fighting to get sales. All throughout the month I kept wondering if I was doing something to make God angry at me. Day after day I kept missing sale after sale. I was really starting to get desperate. One thing that became apparent to me though was that it wasn’t just me, I found out that everyone else at our dealership wasn’t doing very well either. In fact, car sales were way down city wide last month for some reason.

Looking back on the month I figured out that God probably wasn’t angry with me. In fact I finished the month tied for second place for the total number of cars sold. I finished the month on a high note selling two cars on the last day of the month. I plan on using this momentum to start this next month off on a high note.

Training should be over after this week and I’ll see if I can’t start getting back to writing some of my more witty blogs!

Be Blessed!

BIG SCOTT