Thank You, Father, for Your gifts.
1. Let us be grateful today.
²We have come to gentler paths and smoother ways.
³We no longer think of turning back, nor do we resist the truth with bitter opposition.
⁴There is still a trace of hesitation, a few remaining objections and a little wavering, but you can be grateful for all you have achieved, which is far more than you realize.
⁵To spend one day in gratitude will bring you the benefit of at least partly understanding the true extent of all the gains you have made and the gifts you have received. I
2. Rejoice today in loving thankfulness that your Father has not left you to yourself, nor let you wander in the dark alone.
²Give thanks that He has saved you from the self you thought you made to take the place of Him and of His Creation.
³Give Him thanks today.
3. Give thanks that He has not abandoned you, and that His Love will shine on you forever, changeless through all eternity.
²Give thanks as well for your own changelessness, for the Son He loves is just as changeless as Himself.
³Be grateful you have been saved.
⁴Rejoice that you have a function in salvation.
⁵Be thankful that your worth transcends your meager gifts and petty judgments of the one whom God established as His Son. II
4. Today, in gratitude, we lift our hearts above despair and raise our thankful eyes, no longer looking downward to the dust.
²We sing a song of thankfulness today in honor of the Self that God has willed to be our true Identity in Him.
³Today we smile on everyone we see and walk with lightened footsteps as we go to do what has been given us to do.
5. We do not walk alone.
²And we give thanks that in our solitude a Friend has come to speak the saving Word of God to us.
³And thank you, too, for listening.
⁴His Word is silent if it is not heard.
⁵Therefore, your thanks are due to you as well.
⁶A message not received cannot bring salvation, no matter how powerful the Voice that speaks, nor how loving the message is.
6. Thanks to you who have heard, for you become the messenger who brings His Voice with you and lets It echo round the world.
²Receive the thanks of God, as you give Him yours.
³He wants to offer you His gratitude in return for yours, for He receives your gifts with loving gratitude, and gives you thanks a thousand and ten thousand times more than you gave.
⁴He will bless your gifts by sharing them with you.
⁵And so they grow in power and in strength, until they fill the world with joy and gratitude.
7. Receive His thanks, and offer Him your own during fifteen minutes, twice today.
²And you will understand to Whom you offer thanks, and Who it is Who thanks you when you give thanks to Him. III
³This holy half hour given Him will be returned to you in years for every second—powerful enough to save the world eons of time.
8. Accept His thanks, and you will understand how lovingly He holds you in His Mind, how deep and boundless is His Care for you, how perfect His Gratitude toward you.
²Remember to think of God each hour, and give Him thanks for everything He gave His Son, so he might rise above the world remembering his Father and his Self.
I Few things are more powerful than gratitude. Or rather, there may be nothing more powerful, for there is no difference between gratitude and love. Creation was an act of pure love—the expression of God’s Joy in Being—the Gratitude of God made Son. The Son of God imitates His Father and gratefully returns to Him the joy of being in His own Creations. And that is in eternity, and eternity is That. And that is true prayer.
The Song of Prayer reminds us of it in the Introduction: “Prayer is the greatest gift with which God blessed His Son when He created him. It must become once again as it was then: the one Voice the Creator and the Creation share; the song the Son sings to the Father, Who returns to His Son the thanks that the song brings to Him. Endless harmony, and perpetual as well the joyous concord of Love They offer each Other forever. And thus is Creation extended. God gives thanks to His extension in His Son, and His Son gives thanks for having been created in his creative song in the Name of his Father. The Love They share is what all prayer will forever be for all eternity, when time has ended. For so it was before time seemed to be.”
Today’s Lesson is about that. It is a Lesson on true prayer.
Gratitude is simply the natural and inevitable expression of awareness of what has been received and is enjoyed. To give thanks is to give—that is, it is also to receive. Each time we give thanks for something, we strengthen in our mind the very idea we are thanking for. The gift we have received multiplies, because we give it.
Through today’s Lesson we strengthen in our mind the awareness of being the Son of God and bring the fragmented mind a little closer to its final integration.
When, with your tiny, particular mind, you pray in gratitude to God for the faint glimpse of the gifts you have received from His Love, you open your eyes a little wider to your true identity.
Gratitude is love, and love is Reality. This means that it exists and is experienced in real time—the only time there is: the present. And the proof of it is that every time you give thanks, your gratitude returns to you and fills you—in the present. You need nothing else to know that it is real, that it is love.
Therefore, dedicate this day to thanking God for being His Son. For you live in Him, breathe in Him, love in Him, and exist in Him. How could you not be grateful? Today will be a day of gratitude. Today will be a truly wonderful day.
II As we work with the expressions of gratitude Jesus offers us in these Lessons, it is important to keep one fundamental criterion in mind: it is not a matter of forcing ourselves to be grateful for what we are not yet able to recognize.
Many of the reasons for gratitude presented to us we will not yet be able to see clearly. Others, however, we will. And it is precisely those we can perceive—even partially—to which we should direct our gratitude.
We see only a little, but the little we see is enough. Let us therefore give thanks for that little which we can truly recognize, sincerely and from the heart. That small act of genuine gratitude will bring us another glimmer of light.
It is not about giving automatic or formal thanks for gifts we are not yet able to experience. There is no hurry: the time will come when we will see and give thanks for what now seems beyond our reach. For now, what matters is that our gratitude be true, heartfelt, and real.
When Jesus invites us to give thanks, we can respond to Him with complete honesty: “This I do not yet see, but this other I do.” For example, we may feel grateful for already having recognized our true function, even if deeper understandings have not yet arrived. And that single, sincerely experienced reason for gratitude is enough. We need no more.
Jesus does not ask us for empty words or formal gestures. He asks only for a sincere spark of gratitude, an authentic feeling that arises from the heart. So let us focus on what we can truly recognize and give thanks for, and leave aside—without any concern—what we cannot yet see. Each step will come in its own time.
III God gives thanks to your Self—the only Son He knows.