It has been fairly common in our family for the youngest child to delight in saying the blessing before meals. So for the last while, Timothy, our 4 year old, has often eagerly asked to say the blessing. His prayers have developed of course, moving first from unintelligible to intelligible and then adding and substituting …
In most of the Christian circles I know, people are accustomed to saying a prayer of thanks before their meals- “returning thanks,” “saying a blessing,” “saying grace.” I have also found that many like me who grew up with this practice also somewhere along the way began to wonder where this practice came from. I …
Continue reading ‘Why do we “say a blessing” before eating?’ »
As part of our thinking about Thanksgiving this year, following a suggestion from Doug Phillips, I read to our older boys chapter 4 from William Bradford’s Of Plymouth Plantation: Bradford’s History of the Plymouth Settlement, 1608-1650. They had read through the book this year, but this gave me an opportunity to emphasize a certain aspect …
Continue reading ‘Thanksgiving Thoughts, William Bradford & The Pilgrims’ »
For Thanksgiving I am posting one of my favorite hymns of thanks. It was written in the 17th century by Lutheran pastor, Martin Rinkart, after his city had endured horrible death and devastation in the midst of the Thirty Years’ War (at one point he was leading 50 funerals a day). Yet, the city was …
As we begin our Thanksgiving, let me share this hymn. It is good for us to give thanks to God for all things, but we must take care that we not sound as if we are really worshipping the idol Materialism. In other words, while we thank God for things, we have much to thank …