I recently listened to a pastor tell a story about prayer. He said he was a young pastor many years ago at his first church, and one of the older leaders in the church always finished his prayers with the same words. The pastor acknowledged we all tend to do that - adopt our own prayer language. But he said the first several times he heard this man's particular language, he didn't get it.
He said this man, no matter what the prayer occasion was - dinner, communion, special requests, closing prayer - he always finished the prayer by saying "and Lord, thank you for what you're going to do." The pastor said he eventually got it. He understood those words. He said they have a profound effect on him to this day. I suppose much like they have me since I heard them. Those words of prayer are a beautiful acknowledgement of something I've felt powerfully since last New Year's Eve. Just because I don't necessarily like what is going on in my life, doesn't mean for a second God isn't doing something in my life. Too often, we limit feeling God's presence to the spaces where we feel good. Which makes it possible - maybe even likely - that we feel less of God - that we are less thankful for God - when we don't feel good where we are. This old and wise man had figured this out, I think. So his solution was to start thanking God for everything before it ever happened. He realized we are prone to base our gratitude on the situations in our lives, so he started thanking God for every situation before it ever came to be. And trust me, I know how God works in my life. If I thank God ahead of time for everything he's going to do, if I then get to grumbling about any of it after the fact, God will be quick to remind me - "it's all cool, Keith, you've already thanked me for it." Which in turn will be my reminder to turn my heart away from grumbling and toward gratitude. I don't know what your new year holds for you. I don't know what mine holds for me. I imagine if we look ahead we might see what we see if we look behind at 2021 today. There was some good, there was some bad, some stuff I'm grateful for - some stuff I'm NOT so grateful for. Well, I don't think we can control all the good and the bad ahead. But we can control the gratitude. If you're the praying kind, you can stop with me now, or maybe later today when you have a quiet space. And you can say, "Lord, thank you for what you're going to do it 2022." Maybe even commit to what I've committed to in 2022. If I start a day with no other words of prayer other than "Lord, thank you for what you're going to do today," those words will be enough. Enough, I think, for me AND for God. Today, we can't remove the variability and the uncertainty out of the days ahead. But we can make certain we're grateful for all of them. Sometimes in the middle of the moments we don't much like, it can be easy to forget to cling to gratitude. I think God gets that. I think he expects it of us. And I think he'd have no problem if we thank him now - just in case we forget. So Lord, thank you - thank you for what you're going to do.....
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Robert "Keith" CartwrightI am a friend of God, a dad, a runner who never wins, but is always searching for beauty in the race. Archives
May 2024
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