Praying With Thanksgiving

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Day 5: Praying With Thanksgiving

Rev. Luke Powell

If all this talk of prayer this week is starting to sound quite burdensome to you, I want to point out that Paul calls us to always pray with thanksgiving. He says: "I urge, then, first of all, that petitions, prayers, intercession and thanksgiving be made for all people" (1 Timothy 2:1 NIV11)

I've been speaking about petitions and intercession this whole time, but if you're just asking asking asking then prayer does become burdensome.

Prayer Is More Than Asking

Being faithful in prayer is not just about asking and pleading and begging, although that is important. Prayer is ultimately an act of thanksgiving above all.

Someone once said, "Where there is no thanks, there is no joy." Could that be the truth when it comes to your prayer life? No thanks, and therefore, prayer is joyless and dry and lifeless?

What if you approached this whole prayer thing as a joy and not a duty? What if you saw prayer as primarily a joyful opportunity to express your thankfulness to God?

I think the rest will come, if we are deeply thankful and full of praise and worship in our prayers.

What the Psalms Teach Us About Gratitude

Listen to the ways the Psalmists would prioritise thankfulness in their prayers:

• Psalm 119:62: "At midnight I rise to give you thanks for your righteous laws."

• Psalm 118:18-19: "Open for me the gates of the righteous; I will enter and give thanks to the Lord."

• Psalm 9:1: "I will give thanks to you, Lord, with all my heart."

Listen to Paul's great thankful heart shining through his letters, and his desire for the people to be thankful:

• 1 Corinthians 1:4: "I always thank my God for you because of his grace given you in Christ Jesus."

• Ephesians 1:16: "I have not stopped giving thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers."

• Colossians 2:6-7: "Continue to live your lives in him, rooted and built up in him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness."

I could go on. But I leave you to read your Bible searching for that thankfulness in each page. You'll see it everywhere.

Making Thankfulness Your Default in Prayer

Being found faithful in prayer isn't about putting a heavy burden on yourself to pray even though you hate praying. It's about being so full of joyful thankfulness that you can't help but connect with God in prayer all day every day.

Yes, sometimes your prayers are filled with tears. Yes, sometimes you are burdened and you bring these things to God and weep. But always, always, in the heart of the faithful pray-er, there is a deep sense of gratitude for who God is and what He has done.

In fact, when writing to the Romans, Paul said this: "Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer." (Romans 12:12 NIV11)

Will that be your story? "What too often comes last in a church's priorities should actually come first."

Let's be people for whom prayer comes first. Let's be found faithful in prayer.

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