The Gift of a New Day

We give you hearty thanks for the rest of the past night

and for the gift of a new day, with its opportunities of pleasing you.

Grant that we may so pass its hours in the perfect freedom of your service,

that at eventide we may again give thanks to you.  Amen.

— #676 in The United Methodist Hymnal, current edition

Bishop Woodie White taught me about it.

I never heard him preach it, and he never mentioned it privately to me.

But Bishop Woodie White taught me about it while he was our United Methodist Bishop.

He would begin his prayers with gratitude for God’s gift of this particular day.

Join the rest of us in this prayer, and especially notice the second line:

We give you hearty thanks for the rest of the past night

and for the gift of a new day, with its opportunities of pleasing you.

Grant that we may so pass its hours in the perfect freedom of your service,

that at eventide we may again give thanks to you.  Amen.

— #676 in The United Methodist Hymnal, current edition