Table Grace
In a sermon at Immanuel Presbyterian Church in Los Angeles, Gary Wilburn said: “In 1636, amid the darkness of the Thirty Years’ War, a German pastor, Martin Rinkart, is said to have buried five thousand of his parishioners in one year, and average of fifteen a day. His parish was ravaged by war, death, and economic disaster. In the heart of that darkness, with the cries of fear outside his window, he sat down and wrote this table grace for his children:
Now thank we all our God
With heart and hands and voices;
Who wondrous things had done
In whom His world rejoices.
Who, from our mother’s arms
Hath led us on our way
With countless gifts of love
And still is ours today.”
Here was a man who knew thanksgiving comes from love of God, not from outward circumstances.