A Thanksgiving Prayer

Lord, on this Thanksgiving Day, we pause to remind ourselves that all glory and power belongs to You and to You alone. We rejoice that our Creator is a God both just and loving, who seeks only our joyful obedience in return for Your abundant blessings.

We thank You for our lives, our health, our sustenance of food, clothing, and shelter. We thank You for the gifts of freedom and opportunity that you gave our nation more than two centuries ago.

We confess, Lord, that we are unworthy of these gifts. We have become ignorant of Your Word, and forgotten that Your gift of freedom can only continue while we are ever watchful for those who seek to use against Your purposes.

You gave us plenty, and we made ourselves fat;

You gave us opportunity, and we made ourselves selfish;

You gave us inventiveness, and we used it for our own entertainment, to dull ourselves from the reality of this life, and to create engines of war that have brought terror and destruction to the world;

You gave us a Republic, and we turned it into an Empire for the benefit of greedy and unscrupulous men, who are now set to turn it against us, taking away everything that we have worked for.

Because You are a just God, we are entering a bitter winter of our own making; but because You are a loving God, we can hope that, by humbling ourselves before You and relying on Your strength and not our own, we will find the strength to put ourselves right, so we may feel the warmth of Your spring.

You have given us Your son, Jesus Christ, who taught us the ways of love and faithfulness. Following his example, we do not seek to strike down our enemies, but pray instead that You will create a miracle – one that will convict us of our wrongdoing and draw us closer to You, and will turn the hearts of our enemies – foreign and domestic – to the truth of Your love and justice.

Give us a lust for integrity, a greed for Thy wisdom, and rest from our petty worries. Give us a zeal for teaching and leading our fellow men to Your perfect ways; so that, when we face Your judgment, we may be allowed by Your grace to feel the warmth of Your love forever.

And let us never forget that You gave us Your perfect example in Your son, whose name we adore and cherish, and in whose name we humbly pray.

Amen.