A Prayer for Thanksgiving

We confess how much we need to remember that our purpose is to celebrate you Father, Son and Holy Spirit all day, every day. What we mean is to revel in You! We have been reminded today how easy it is to get caught up in the news and lost in our own problems. Forgive us for forgetting to pray; forgetting to meditate on what is true, forgetting to thank you. Life is transformed when we remember that you are rescuing the world and judging evil and our Master is about to arrive. He could show up any minute! We remember your holy word that calls to us, “Don’t fret or worry. Instead of worrying, pray. Let petitions and praises shape your worries into prayers, letting God know your concerns. Before you know it, a sense of God’s wholeness, everything coming together for good, will come and settle you down. It’s wonderful what happens when Christ displaces worry at the center of your life.” So our perspective changes when we turn our eyes upon Jesus, when we look up and begin to give thanks.

So here we are broken people but also blessed like the bread we eat together around this table. So broken that it is hard to see straight unless we remember how you have blessed us. Father we hear you calling to us by your Spirit and by your Word. We hear you saying, “I have called you by name, from the very beginning. You are mine and I am yours. You are my beloved, on you my favor rests as it rests on my own Son. I have molded you in the depths of the earth and knitted you together in your mother’s womb. I have carved you in the palms of my hands and hidden you in the shadow of my embrace. I am your Father and nothing will ever separate us. We are one.”

Give us faith and give us the strength to meditate on things true, noble, reputable, authentic, compelling, gracious—the best, not the worst; the beautiful, not the ugly; things to praise, not things to curse. Fill this week with thankfulness and gratitude for your blessing in the brokenness that is the source of this new life we live in Christ.