A Prayer of Thanksgiving to God

February 8th, 2025

HEBREW TEXT:
בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה, יְיָ אֱלֹהֵינוּ, מֶלֶךְ הָעוֹלָם, שֶׁהֶחֱיָנוּ וְקִיְּמָנוּ וְהִגִּיעָנוּ לַזְּמַן הַזֶּה.
TRANSLATION:
Blessed are You, Adonai our God, Sovereign of all, who has kept us alive, sustained us, and brought us to this season.
SCRIPTURE:
"He, who began a good work in you, will be faithful to complete it..." Philippians 1: 6

Remember Him patiently, friend. God is faithful. Remember with patience, beloved. Even though 2025 begins on an odd note, He is faithful.

In the tradition of Hanukkah, The Festival of Lights, there is the lighting of ceremonial candles by an attendant candle called the shammash. As a moment of reflection and thanksgiving for the event denoting the return of Jerusalem to the Jewish people and the rededication of the temple, there is the offering of the Shehecheyanu Berakhah, a prayer of thanksgiving to God, for His refreshing. It notes what He has done, and is doing to the blessing of His own, keeping them from one moment to the present.

We can, with sanctified application consider such, not only for the event years before Jesus birth which lent to Hanukkah [which Jesus observed, John 10:20-30], but also the coming of grace that fateful day in Bethlehem, overseeing an occupied manger by a peculiar attendant 'star' to herald the 'light of the world', Yeshua HaMaschioch, Jesus the Christ... prophecy fulfilled... for the sake of 'all lives' mattering.

PRAYER: This reality should champion all of our sympathies. Bless You Lord-God, for the doing what none other could. You have met us at a place made with hands. You have reached us, having 'put on' hands, and becoming 'tabernacle'. You have shown us a 'foretaste of glory divine'. You have dismissed Your glory to be 'Emmanuel'. Hallelujah.
By Dea. McNeal Brockington