I know what your thinking. Thanksgiving is months away. It is but it should not be. I am becoming convicted that thanksgiving is suppose to be a heart attitude of gratitude if you are a Christian. Thinking about thanksgiving as a biblical concept, and not a day commemorated once a year where we eat, drink, and watch to much TV in the name of celebrating a turkey fest called Thanksgiving, is not natural for me. I often forget how much I have to be thankful for. I often forget that God wants me to live in giving him thanks.

I will enter his courts with thanksgiving in my heart, I will enter his courts with praise. For I will say that this is the day that the Lord has made and I will rejoice for he has made me glad.

The Bible is filled with commands not suggestions to practice a life at thanksgiving. It is not complicated. Why do we not make more effort at giving thanks? Well if your like me, it is because often you have this jacked up mindset that you deserve even better things than how much good you have. We often do not practice thanks giving because we are not grateful. I am working on this in my life. A method of cultivating thanks giving is to pray with giving thanks to God.

Paul writes the early church in Colossia that they can guard their hearts in their prayers by praying with thanksgiving.

Continue steadfastly in prayer, being watchful in it with thanksgiving.

Giving thanks to God lets us walk in his grace and keep things in perspective. So here is my thanksgiving prayer for a great Sunday.

Dear God thank you for today. I’ve hurt from before sunup to now well after sundown. I thank you that I have by grace not complained or wined about it because your grace has sustained me. I asks Lord that it will sustain me again tomorrow and in a few when I try to sleep. I thank you for sustaining me through the exercise this morning. I thank you we made it to Church on time. I thank you for my wife’s ability to make awesome homemade cake and the really good spaghetti dinner. I thank you for the joy of holding my son, made in my image, and who at even four months stares at me with miniature copies of my own blue eyes. I thank you for the rare but really good chance for our entire family to nap today as it rained outside. Thank you for the rain that is watering the new lawn growing. I thank you I got to hold my wife in my arms today because you created her for me to marry. She’s awesome in so many ways so let me just say thank you for her. I thank you for my daughter. Thank you for giving me enough pain relief to hold and cuddle her and thank you for her finally going to bed. Thank you for the movie we watched tonight that reminded me I need to practice more thanksgiving especially for really wonderful days like today. Thank you for being there God my whole life, even the times I doubted you even existed. Thank you for being there with your grace and love when I doubt you again. God thanks for being God. Amen.

What do you have to be thankful for? Feel free to leave them in your comments.

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