Balwyn Church of Christ

Just this once, Lord,

I want to come to You without problems,

Without asking for anything, without telling you how to run my day,

Just simply to say “Thank You!

For Your forgiveness when we fall...

For the sheer joy of sleep when I'm terribly tired...

For the silent strength of humility when pride over takes me...

For the justice of Your laws when men are cruel...

For the remedies for sickness when I am ill...

For the simplicity of orderliness when I face confusion...

For the assurance that You have made a place especially for me

when I feel inadequate among my peers...

For the joy of helping others when I see people in need...

For the earthly evidences of Your Will when I'm trying to find out what life

is all about...

For the reality of Your world when I stray too far into fantasy...

For the rightness of reasonableness when I panic too quickly...

For the fun that refreshes when everything gets too serious...

For the renewal in moments of silence when

I'm dizzy from being busy in a hectic world...

Thank You, Lord for all these things.

But most of all, Thank You for Your Abiding Presence

that makes every day I live, a day of thanks.”

In the early church, just before the holy meal that we know as the Lord’s

Supper, people brought forth food, mainly bread and wine, for a meal. They

brought the everyday labours of their hands, what they had at home, and

they put it up on the Lord’s Table in the great offertory procession. You can

see these ordinary people, coming forward at the invitation of their pastor,

putting what they had on the table. In offering their food, in giving the stuff

of their daily life back to God, for the use by God’s people, they were

participating in oblation. This giving, this oblation, is one of the great

movements of our faith. We are not created simply to be receivers, takers:

we are also created to be givers.