Lord, I know you’re busy. I’ve checked your schedule. But, I hope you’ll take a moment to hear my prayer today.

First off, I really pray you’ll help all of us around here remember how great we’ve got it. Yes, I know we’re an ungrateful bunch down here. We whine and complain way too much for us to have all the blessings we have in our lives. I really hope You can make people more mindful of the fact that as bad as things seem sometimes, we have it pretty danged good, especially as Americans.

I thank you for the fact that I can’t think of a single place in all of your creation that I’d rather raise my family in or call home.

I say that, even though I know you look at our beautiful country today and feel a measure of sadness. Too many of us have decided that it’s just easier to get mad, be ugly to each other, and do what we want to do in regard to how we live our lives and what we do with them. In doing so, we have turned our eyes and hearts away from the things You decreed we do way back at the beginning.

It really is so simple to just do unto others as we’d have done to ourselves, but it seems that if whatever we are doing doesn’t involve profit or greed it just doesn’t happen much anymore. Help us see that the best things in this life have nothing to do with a danged dollar bill. It’s a sad statement that the most thought some folks have in a given day in regard to You is when they read “In God We Trust” on their money.

Please, please forgive us of our pettiness. I don’t know why it is, but for some reason us humans seem to get too bogged down in stuff that really doesn’t amount to a hill of beans in the overall scheme of things. Greed and jealousy are not parts of Your plan for us, and we need help remembering that much.

Father, help us find a way to be able to work around everything else we’ve faced in 2024. We’re tired down here, Lord – physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. We know you’ve got this covered (just like you always do), but it sure would be great if you could gift wrap whatever you’ve got in mind for Christmas? Sure would be a nice way to start 2025.

I hope and pray You will give us the vision to see what is right and wrong, and make us brave enough to stand up for and do that which we know is right. And please, make that count for our politicians, too.

Father, I pray you’ll inspire our children to be better than we’ve been for them. I only hope that they’ll be able to wallow through the mess we are going to leave for them to clean up when we are gone from this Earth, and that they’ll have a stronger resolve to actually do something to make things better for their kids, and not worse, as we’ve done. In other words, maybe You will give them the wisdom to learn from us what not to do.

I hope you’ll make more people aware that this holiday season there will be a lot of families doing without, and that those ‘with,’ who do have need to do more, to help those who have not to at least have something to give them hope.

Heavenly Father, I ask you to make us, all of us, ever mindful of the fact that our proper place on this Earth is in a partnership with You. We have control of the decisions we make, but if we make those decisions with You at the forefront, we will never stumble or fall. It is only when we act selfishly that we risk failure.

God, please make us ever mindful that all of us are dragging a bag of junk behind us. Some bags are bigger than others, some are heavier than others, but all of us have one. If we could just throw them off our backs and go through our lives without them weighing us down, we would – but in the end, we are only human. That’s why we pray for you to help us carry the load.

You’ve blessed us all far more than we will ever deserve. When we finally realize that fact and be appreciative for it, then maybe, just maybe we will finally see the light – you know, the one that isn’t another oncoming train of our creation.

And, if we do nothing else this week, Lord, help us find the time to pause, turn our eyes upward, and say out loud, “Thank You.” After all, isn’t that what Thanksgiving is for?