Daily Lesson for Thanksgiving Day, November 28, 2019

Today’s Daily Lesson for Thanksgiving Day comes from the Book of Common Prayer (slightly altered):

Almighty God, Father and Mother of all mercies, we your unworthy servants give you humble thanks for all your goodness and loving-kindness to us and to all whom you have made. We bless you for our creation, preservation, and all the blessings of this life; but above all for your immeasurable love in the redemption of 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 truly thankful hearts we may show forth your praise, not only with our lips, but in our lives, by giving up ourselves to your service, and by walking before you in holiness and righteousness all our days; through Jesus Christ our Lord, to whom, with you and the Holy Spirit, be honor and glory throughout all ages.

Amen.

I love the plea to God for an awareness of mercies. With all that rightfully concerns us about the present we fret and worry over about the future, O what a gift to be made aware of God’s mercies.  This is not to diminish or deny all the challenges, injustices, and just plain wrong doings in this world; but if we had just an inkling of all the mercies we’ve received in the past year then we would know for sure and forever that God is on our side. 

And God is on our side. 

I’m about to watch the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. For some reason — and its a little embarrassing to admit this — it always makes me cry. That’s probably because the Parade is the first official act of Thanksgiving and therefore the whole Holiday season. We’ve made it another year around the sun. And what untold number of graces and mercies we must have received to have made it happen — especially when some of us drive like we do!

Give us an awareness of your mercies, dear LORD. An awareness of life, of love, of second, and third, and fourth, and 77x7 chances, and of the goodness of this day’s daily bread and all our days’ — even the worst ones — daily grace.