As we Sing Our Faith Through the Fall, we often move on the calendar from All Saints’ toward Thanksgiving. The theme of thankfulness echoes in the pages of our hymnbook. Hymn 643 in the Glory to God Presbyterian Hymnal is a great segway into songs of thanksgiving. (Hymnwriter Martin Rinkart crafted the first two stanzas of this hymn based on a family table prayer during the Thirty Years’ War – 1618-1648.)
1 Now thank we all our God
with heart and hands and voices,
who wondrous things has done,
in whom his world rejoices;
who from our mothers’ arms
has blessed us on our way
with countless gifts of love,
and still is ours today.2 O may this bounteous God
through all our life be near us,
with ever joyful hearts
and blessed peace to cheer us,
to keep us in his grace,
and guide us when perplexed,
and free us from all ills
of this world in the next.3 All praise and thanks to God
the Father now be given,
the Son and Spirit blest,
who reign in highest heaven
the one eternal God,
whom heaven and earth adore;
for thus it was, is now,
and shall be evermore.
Prayer
All praise and thanks is due to you, God, for all the blessings you have given us. Thank you. In Jesus’ name. Amen
