Give Thanks

Today, we continue to reflect on the year just gone and look forward to the new year to come, adapting an ancient method of prayer known as the Examen.

Loving Father, please help me to be still. I open my ears to hear You now, and I quietly prepare my heart for all that You have for me as I approach the new year.

Read: Psalm 9:1-2 (NIVUK)

Pause and pray

Today, we are reflecting on one of the many Psalms that overflow with thanksgiving and praise…

Read: Psalm 105:1-5 (NLT)

My mother recalls that when I was a child, our bedtime prayers would often go on and on, because I insisted on thanking God for everything. ‘Thank You God for the chairs… Thank You God for my bed… Thank You God for the curtains…’ and so on. I’m choosing to believe that this was an early sign of a deeply grateful life rather than a cunning attempt to delay bedtime.

Today’s Psalm is an example of the second stage of the Examen, which is all about cultivating an attitude of gratitude.

And so, I take a few moments to think back over the year. What, or who, am I thankful for?

(Flicking through the photos on my phone might trigger a few memories.)

I pray a few of my own simple, ‘Thank You God for…’ prayers right now.

Pause and pray

I think particularly of the people who encouraged me this year. Who was there when I needed help? Whose words or actions inspired me to become a better me this year?

I take a few moments to give thanks to God for these people.

Is there some way that I could express my thanks to them today?

Pause and pray

‘The foremost quality of a trusting disciple is gratefulness,’ writes Brennan Manning. ‘Gratitude arises from the lived perception, evaluation, and acceptance that all of life is grace - as an undeserved and unearned gift from the Father’s hand. Such recognition is itself a work of grace, and acceptance of the gift is implicitly an acknowledgement of the Giver. The grateful heart cries out each morning, “Thank you, Lord, for the gift of a new day.”’*

Lord God, I use this prayer as my own as I remember this past year with gratitude… Thank You, Lord, for the gift of each and every day and the gifts within each day, too.

Amen.

* Brennan Manning, Ruthless Trust, (New York: HarperCollins, 2002). pp. 24-25.