A Thanksgiving Confession

On Thanksgiving Day (November 27 in the USA), the following by Stanley Pritchard may be an appropriate admission.

Lord, we confess that we love to be independent, and we find it hard to give thanks for everything that happens to us, everything that comes our way. We want to feel that we have deserved success and a home and friends and honorable work; and so sometimes our thanksgivings ring false: just words that we take on our lips without meaning, without understanding. We are not ungrateful, but we expect our due. We feel we have earned our place in society, and that by our own labors, our own thinking, our own vision, we have gotten where we are. We accept our gifts as our right. So we forget that the whole earth is yours, and you gave it to us. We forget that the breath of life is your gift, and you have made us living souls. We forget that our best purposes are yours, and that you have inspired us to achievement and strengthened us for fulfillment. Give us therefore a grateful heart, O Lord, that we may offer our thanks with gladness and understanding, mindful that all things come from you, and that without you we have nothing and are nothing. Amen.