Thanksgiving Psalm

I heard this story from my Molecular Biology professor. He told this story in honor of Thanksgiving last week. When he was 60 years old, B. H. Roberts (who wrote the Comprehensive History of the Church) was a chaplain in World War I right before the treaty was signed, so he never saw combat. He was the only Mormon chaplain in his division and the other chaplains didn't like him too much. They were kind of mean to him. They were having a big celebration meeting to celebrate and give thanks for the end of the war. One of the chaplains who was leading the meeting announced that he would be pleased to hear Brother Roberts recite "the Thanksgiving Psalm" in honor of this celebration.

There was only one problem: Elder Roberts had no idea which psalm was the Thanksgiving Psalm, or even if there was a Thanksgiving Psalm.

So he got up off his chair and slowly walked up to the podium, having no idea what he would say when he got there. He didn't want to make a fool of himself, but even more importantly, he didn't want to make the Church look bad. On his way to the stage, he heard a voice call out, "Psalm 100!" He turned to look who had said it, but he didn't see anyone else looking around and realized that no one else had heard it. So he got up to the podium, turned to Psalm 100 in his Bible and started reading, having no idea what Psalm 100 was even about. This is what he read:

  1 Make a joyful noise unto the Lord, all ye lands.

  2 Serve the Lord with gladness: come before his presence with singing

  3 Know ye that the Lord he is God: it is he that hath made us, and not we ourselves; we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture.

  4 Enter into his gates with thanksgiving, and into his courts with praise: be thankful unto him, and bless his name.

  5 For the Lord is good; his mercy is everlasting; and his truth endureth to all generations.

 Pretty cool, huh? Later that evening he went through the entire book of Psalms and couldn't find any better psalm that mentioned "thanksgiving." Anyway, I just thought it was a cool story about how the Lord comes through for you in the end.