Developing An Attitude of Prayerful Grattitude
One of the questions I have been asking myself in my daily walk with
God lately has been “Why are my prayers seemingly not being heard?” I
know that God has reasons for not answering prayers in the way that I
would ask Him to, but I decided to dig in a little bit, and God answered my
question.
We are given a command in the Psalms to “Enter into his gates with
thanksgiving, and into his courts with praise; be thankful unto him, and
bless his name.” (Psalm 100:4 av) Something that I realized in my life is
that my thankfulness to God is anemic at best. I realized that I came
back from the slums of India last year so on fire, and so thankful to
God that I had been so blessed, but life started to get in the way again
and I forgot to nurture the gratitude towards God. We are shown in the
book of Romans what can happen when we forget to be thankful. “Because
that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were
thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart
was darkened.” (Romans 1:21 av) A darkened heart is not what I want to
be accused of having.
I talked to a few people to see what they thank God for in their daily
prayer life. I could not believe what I heard. Most people were not
taking time in their prayer life to thank God. They did as I did, they
entered into the prayer with a small laundry list of requests, a few
prayers for my friends, and family and authorities in my life; and that was
it. God has provided His son, Jesus Christ, to atone for our sins. As
if that is not enough to be thankful for, consider your family, friends,
health, safety, religious freedom; the list is endless.
When we are truly and deeply thankful with God, we will find peace. The
Bible says “And let the peace of God rule in your hearts, to that which
also ye are called in one body; and be ye thankful.” (Colossians 3:15
av)
The book of Psalms mentions the word thanks nineteen times. That is
just one word. Many of the words that David used were in thankfulness.
David was considered a friend of God. I want to be considered a friend of
God. I will give Him more thanks. I must change my paradigm to remember
God in all things.
How many of us feel we can truly thank God, even in the worst
circumstances of life? That is the goal to aim at; to thank God in all things,
in all circumstances, in all places. Thankfulness does not have to be a
big production. You do not have to pray as the Pharisees did, loudly
and often. Just remember to spice up your prayer life by being thankful
for that which God has done. I suggest starting out each prayer with
what you are thankful for. That is what “entering into the gates with
thanksgiving” means to me.