Give Thanks - Singing Our Prayers

As I reflect on songs of thanksgiving, so many songs fit the category. Some are songs we traditionally sing around Thanksgiving time (often with a good harvest focus). Others simply sing of the awesome works of God. Even if thanks is never mentioned, the songs make thanks surface in our hearts (for example, 10,000 Reasons, a song we frequently sing in church). Here is one of the classics:

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Let All Things Now Living (Psalter Hymnal 453)

Let all things now living a song of thanksgiving  
to God the Creator triumphantly raise,  
who fashioned and made us, protected and stayed us,  
who guides us and leads to the end of our days.  
His banners are o'er us, his light goes before us,  
a pillar of fire shining forth in the night,  
till shadows have vanished and darkness is banished,  
as forward we travel from light into light.

His law he enforces; the stars in their courses  
and sun in its orbit obediently shine;  
the hills and the mountains, the rivers and fountains,  
the deeps of the ocean proclaim him divine.  
We too should be voicing our love and rejoicing;  
with glad adoration a song let us raise,  
till all things now living unite in thanksgiving:  
to God in the highest, hosanna and praise!

Text: Katherine K. Davis, 1939.