“Thankful hearts and voices raise; tell everyone what God has done. Let all who seek the Lord rejoice and bear Christ’s holy name.  Send us with your promises, O God, and lead us forth in joy with shouts of thanksgiving.  Alleluia!” ~ Post Communion Canticle, With One Voice, Setting Five, p.40

During each Sunday of the Season of Pentecost, we conclude our liturgy by singing a Post Communion Canticle thanking God for what we have received that day.  We thank God for feeding us with the Word and Sacrament.  We praise God for bringing us together to worship His holy name.  We lift up songs of thanksgiving for God’s eternal promise to save, forgive, and redeem us.  Nevertheless, we are called and encouraged to give thanks every day.   

For what are you thankful?  Are you offering prayers of thanksgiving to God for everything you have been given in this life?  Before meals, do you give thanks and/or teach your children to give thanks for the meal set before you?  After receiving an income check, do you give thanks to God for the means to pay for daily needs and wants?  When you donate money to charity or church, do you give thanks to God for blessing you with the ability to do this?  When you ingest the body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ during Holy Communion, do you thank God for this gift of forgiveness, life, and salvation?  For what are you thankful?  (Write or type ten things for which you are thankful.  Maybe you can go beyond ten of them.)

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It is easy to give thanks to God when a miraculous event occurs – like when a loved one lives through a dangerous surgery or a person survives a serious accident.  Don’t get me wrong, we should be thanking God when those events occur.  But do you give thanks to God for the things in life many people might take for granted?  Are you thanking God each and every day for ALL the things you have in life (whether it is another day of life or that you can provide three meals a day or that you have a roof over your head)?  Do you thank God when you learn from a mistake?  And most importantly, do you thank God each day for giving you the means of forgiveness and salvation through the Son, Jesus Christ?  In all things we should give thanks! 

Blessings ~ Pastor Maureen   

Let us pray, Almighty God, Father of all mercies, we humbly thank you for your goodness to us and to all that you have made.  We praise you for your creation, for keeping us and all things in your care, and for all the blessings of life.  Above all we bless you for your immeasurable love in redeeming the world by our Lord Jesus Christ, for the means of grace, and for the hope of glory.  And, we pray, give us such an awareness of your mercies that with thankful hearts we praise you, not only with our lips but in our lives, by giving ourselves to your service and by living your gifts of holiness and righteousness all our days; through Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen. 

(Evangelical Lutheran Worship: Leaders Desk Edition, p. 143)