Thank God

 

No, I’m not swearing. With Thanksgiving coming up, I decided to take a traditional approach to this week’s blog post and thank God for His many blessings: a loving husband, three wonderful children (including my son-in-law), great friends, good health (for my age), my writing, plenty of activities to keep me busy, a church where I can grow in my knowledge of and relationship with Christ, and, of course, Christ’s death on the cross to save me from my sins.

But most of this post will be taken from Martin Luther’s Small Catechism. Here is his explanation to the Fourth Petition of the Lord’s Prayer.

Give us this day our daily bread.

What does this mean? God certainly gives daily bread to everyone without our prayers, even to all evil people, but we pray in this petition that God would lead us to realize this and to receive our daily bread with thanksgiving.

What is meant by daily bread? Daily bread includes everything that has to do with the support and needs of the body, such as food, drink, clothing, shoes, house, home, land, animals, money, goods, a devout husband or wife, devout children, devout workers, devout and faithful rulers, good government, good weather, peace, health, self-control, good reputation, good friends, faithful neighbors, and the like.

So thank God this week and always.

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The photo shows Martin Luther’s study at Wartburg Castle where he translated the New Testament into German. I took it during a Reformation tour in 2016.