A Prayer of Personal Thanksgiving

“I love the Lord, because He has heard my voice and my pleas for mercy.  Because He inclined His ear to me, therefore I will call on Him as long as I live…What shall I render to the Lord for all His benefits to me?  I will lift up the cup of salvation and call on the name of the Lord.  I will pay my vows to the Lord in the presence of all His people.” –Psalm 116: 1-2, 12-14 (ESV).

If you, like the Psalmist, were writing a poem to the Lord to catalog all His benefits to you, what would you list?  You might try this spiritual exercise; it is sobering to see how hard it is to remember all His blessings.  First of all, it is nigh-to-impossible to list them all.  Where to begin?  The air we breathe?  The provision of the necessities of life, like food, shelter, clothing, nurture?  What do we take for-granted that we seldom mention in our prayers of gratitude?  These are important, too. 

Psalm 116 is a personal hymn of thanksgiving in which the psalmist begins by saying he loves the Lord.  That’s always a good place to begin.  I like the prayer acrostic:

•  A – Adoration (This is acknowledging God, honoring and exalting Him)
•  C – Confession (Confessing our faith in God, and our sin and rebellion against Him)
•  T – Thanksgiving (Make a gratitude list; name blessings one by one)
•   S – Supplication (Make yourself available to God to be used in His service)

Psalm 116 begins very dramatically by the psalmist thanking God for snatching him from “the snares of death” (v. 3).  When you think about it, that’s a very justifiable reason to give thanks, for the Lord holds in His hands the gift of life and death.  Two times in my life (thus far) I was near the brink of death, and each time as I had to undergo very serious surgery, I had such calmness and assurance of the Lord’s presence that it was as though He walked that corridor with me into the operating room.  I knew that either way, death or life, He was with me, and I had everything to gain.  To die would take me immediately to His presence and my heavenly reward.  To awake, recover and get on my feet again, I would know, as a popular gospel song states, “God’s not finished with me yet!”

When the Psalmist came through the hardships—even the threats of death—that beset him, he was elated and he wanted to show his gratitude (v. 12).  “The cup of salvation” was evidently a part of the sacrifice of thanksgiving, a portion mentioned specifically by the worshiper.  How much more should this expression call to our minds when we pray that we know the ‘salvation full and free” in Jesus Christ our Lord!  The psalmist determined to give thanks “in the presence of all His people, in the courts of the house of the Lord”—a very definitive reason to assemble ourselves for worship—so we can corporately thank God for ‘all his benefits’

For Prayer and Action:  Do I need to begin, continue or update my ‘gratitude journal’?  Help me know, Lord, that my ACTS of prayer are important to my spiritual growth and faithfulness.  Amen.