• Contact
  • Return to IBSA
  • Advertise Through Us
  • Subscribe
  • E-Reader

IBSA News

Illinois Baptist State Newspaper

  • QuickLinks
    • E-Reader
    • Subscribe
    • Baptist Press
    • Resource Magazine
  • News
    • Corona Virus
    • IBSA
    • SBC
    • Culture
    • Religious Liberty
  • Mission
    • Illinois Churches
    • Church Planting
    • Missions
    • Evangelism
  • In Focus
    • Longform Articles
  • Columns
    • Nate Adams
    • Eric Reed
    • Meredith Flynn
  • Leaders
    • Pat’s Playbook
    • Fresh Ideas
    • iLead
    • Devotional

A Thanksgiving Prayer in free verse (2016 edition)

November 21, 2016 By Eric Reed

(Editor’s Note: Chicago Tribune columnist Joan Beck annually penned a list of things for which she was grateful, letting lines from a few famous hymns to guide her prayer. With appreciation, we borrow her literary form for our own version again this year.) 

As we gather together to count the Lord’s blessings, 396 years after the first Thanksgiving day, we are thankful once again that our forefathers brought forth on this continent a new nation… that survives even today, twelve score years later,

  • still committed as one nation, despite our divisions,
    still committed to the proposition that all people are created equal,
    still committed to pursuit of life, the cardinal freedoms, and happiness.

Our fathers’ God, to Thee, Author of Liberty, we are grateful—

  • For the rule of law and peaceful transfer of power,
    for the right to vote, and whether we win or lose, we’re still one nation under God;
    That truth, justice, and the American way, mystifying it at times may be
    Is God’s gift, this noble attempt to govern well through liberty.

O Lord My God, when we in awesome wonder consider—

  • this year’s progress with cancer drugs, loyal dogs and healing hugs;
    children raised with tender care, troops come home in answered prayer,
    dear souls saved by God above…this is amazing grace, unfailing love.

O God, our help in ages past, our hope for years to come;

  • Wins we never dreamed came true, this was the year for champions:
    Gymnasts, Phelps, and medals gold, victory laps and stories told
    Of dedication’s sure reward, winners crowned and loss consoled;
    Several million voices raised, the whole state rings with the praise;
    Holy cow! a chant sublime, Go, Cubs, Go! It’s about time.

Count your blessings, name them one by one…

  • the bills were paid, the taxes too, the floors were sound, the roof was sure;
    with many homeless, we were “homed,” many hungry, we were fed.
    So thank you, Lord, for my three squares, Pease’s candy, deep-dish pizza,
    Horseshoes, cornbread, and Cracker Barrel.
    Forgive the irony, but thank you, too, for insulin and athletic shoes,
    which we’ll use next year.

Surely, there are 10,000 reasons for my heart to say…Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits.

In Christ alone my hope is found…and in a year of uncertainty, we have learned again the meaning of sovereignty, that God’s in charge whatever man plans, when the world’s unsafe we rest in Your hands. At day’s end with the lights turned out, we hold this blessed assurance close, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Eric Reed is editor of the Illinois Baptist.

Share This Story

  • Facebook
  • Twitter

Coronavirus

  • News
  • Church Helps

Sexual Abuse Prevention & Ministry

Resources

  • Protect your children, protect your church
  • Caring Well
  • Related Stories

Featured Columns

Nate Adams

Hope set high

Nate Adams

Have you ever set out with high hopes, only to find things not working out as you expected? Should that happen even in church and in ministry? Last summer our son Noah and his family moved from the Chicago suburbs where he was a pastor to the front range of the Colorado mountains and a […]

Meredith Flynn

Brighter Day: Small seasons

Meredith Flynn

My family will soon celebrate the end of an era for our youngest daughter. Molly and her classmates will walk across the stage and receive their diplomas, marking the end of preschool and the beginning of their elementary years. Some preschools even dress graduates in miniature caps and gowns. Ours does not, but Molly will […]

Handling history

Nate Adams

A little more than a year ago, a main sewer line backed up into the basement of the IBSA building here in Springfield. Though the primary blockage turned out to be well outside our building, the plumbers also discovered a break in a secondary line. It was directly beneath the section of basement where IBSA’s […]

More Columns

Banding together for Bibles

Illinois Baptist Staff

“Everyone agreed—it was worth the time and effort to make Bibles available to anyone who needed or wanted one,” Pastor Brian Fuller said. Fuller spent much of the 1980’s and 90’s as a Contemporary Christian music (CCM) artist. Now as pastor of First Baptist Church of Woodlawn, Fuller recently picked up a mic again for […]

News

Green arrested on grooming charge

Illinois Baptist Staff

Keith D. Green, a substitute teacher from Ashmore, was arrested May 17 by Mattoon Police on a charge of grooming. Green briefly served as pastor at two Illinois churches more than four years ago. Mattoon Community School District #2 notified police of the allegation that Green had contacted a female under age 17 using an […]

Effective teachers ask: What do learners need?

Former IMB missionaries encourage churches to go global again

More News Stories

Mission

Annie Armstrong

How SBC missions have been influenced by Annie Armstrong

Sandy Wisdom-Martin

A few years ago, I read the SBC president at the time was considering different gavels for presiding at the SBC Annual Meeting. One of the options under consideration was the Armstrong gavel. I sent him an email with this message: This weekend I did a bit of reading on Annie Armstrong and was inspired […]

On mission again

New partnership targets biblical literacy

More Mission Stories

  • Blog
  • News
  • Mission
  • In Focus
  • Columns
  • Leaders

Copyright © 2022 · Website by Megaphone Designs