An "Exercise" in Thanksgiving

O come, let us sing for joy to the Lord,
Let us shout joyfully to the rock of our salvation.
Let us come before His presence with thanksgiving,
Let us shout joyfully to Him with psalms.
For the Lord is a great God
And a great King above all gods,
In whose hand are the depths of the earth,
The peaks of the mountains are His also.
The sea is His, for it was He who made it,
And His hands formed the dry land.
Come, let us worship and bow down,
Let us kneel before the Lord our Maker.
For He is our God,
And we are the people of His pasture and the sheep of His hand.
~Psalm 95:1-7a

My friend Amber is leading a woman's prayer group (of which I am excited to be a part!); and at our first meeting Monday night she challenged us to make a list of all the things we are thankful for and then come before God with prayers of thanksgiving. I think this is a great application of the Biblical command to give thanks (see Ephesians 5:20) because, unfortunately, in our self-centeredness, we human beings tend to fill our prayers with a whole lot of requests and not much praise and thanksgiving.

Anyway, I thought this "exercise" in thanksgiving would make a good blog topic. So, here is my non-exhaustive list as it comes to my mind.

I am thankful for...

• the Word of God. "All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness; so that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work." (2 Timothy 3:16-17)

• prayer. "The Lord has heard my supplication, the Lord receives my prayer." (Psalm 6:9)

• salvation. "But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God." (Ephesians 2:4-8)

• a godly husband. "Then the Lord God said, 'It is not good for the man to be alone; I will make him a helper suitable for him.'" (Genesis 2:18)

• my children. "Behold, children are a gift of the Lord, the fruit of the womb is a reward. Like arrows in the hand of a warrior, so are the children of one's youth. How blessed is the man whose quiver is full of them." (Psalm 127:3-5a)

• my home. "Do not worry then, saying, 'What will we eat?' or 'What will we drink?' or 'What will we wear for clothing?'... for your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you." (Matthew 6:31-33)
  

• my parents. "Train up a child in the way he should go, even when he is old he will not depart from it." (Proverbs 22:6)

• godly friends. "Iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another." (Proverbs 27:17)