We Americans set aside one day each year to give thanks for our many blessings. It hardly seems enough.

No other people are as prosperous as Americans. No other nation does as much to ensure no one is deprived of the necessities of life.

Our neighbors need not be asked for help when they sense we need it. Invariably, natural disasters are followed quickly by human miracles as good-hearted men and women rush to help. That is simply how we Americans govern our lives.

How we govern ourselves collectively has been a marvel to most of the rest of the world for more than two centuries.

Quite simply, our ancestors gave us a government resting solidly on a foundation of individual liberties. Actions tens of millions of Americans engage in regularly would cause billions of others in our world to worry about informers and secret police.

Among our greatest blessings is that for more than two centuries, patriotic, brave Americans have answered our country’s call time and again to keep us free. Many have sacrificed much to do that. Today, we ask the Lord’s special blessings on them.

In large measure our deep, abiding concern for individual liberties stems from the Christian faith upon which the founders relied. The very firmness of their own religion prompted them to ensure that every American be guaranteed the right to worship as he or she sees fit — with no exceptions.

No other people on the face of the earth enjoy a land as rich with valuable resources, biological and geological diversity and natural beauty as ours. There are places within easy driving distance of here where turning one’s eyes to the heavens and thanking God seems almost a reflexive action.

Are we Americans collectively perfect? Of course not. But another of the many traits for which we as a people have reason to feel graced is our continuing drive to do better. God willing, we will persist in moving in that direction.

Much of what we have is because of our own hard work. No one — certainly not the government — did that for us.

But can we doubt that for one reason or another, we have been divinely blessed? For that, we have every reason to be grateful to our Creator.

Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours.