Ask, Receive and Give ThanksSample

Day 7 -  Praying isn’t only asking 

  Praying isn’t only asking. It is also living in the power of thankfulness.

REFERENCE VERSES: 

Psalm 103

1 Praise the Lord, my soul; all my inmost being, praise his holy name.

2 Praise the Lord, my soul, and forget not all his benefits—

3 who forgives all your sins and heals all your diseases,

4 who redeems your life from the pit and crowns you with love and compassion,

5 who satisfies your desires with good things so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s.

6 The Lord works righteousness and justice for all the oppressed.

7 He made known his ways to Moses, his deeds to the people of Israel:

8 The Lord is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love.

9 He will not always accuse, nor will he harbor his anger forever;

10 he does not treat us as our sins deserve or repay us according to our iniquities.

11 For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his love for those who fear him;

12 as far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us.

13 As a father has compassion on his children, so the Lord has compassion on those who fear him;

14 for he knows how we are formed, he remembers that we are dust.

15 The life of mortals is like grass, they flourish like a flower of the field;

16 the wind blows over it and it is gone, and its place remembers it no more.

17 But from everlasting to everlasting the Lord’s love is with those who fear him, and his righteousness with their children’s children—

18 with those who keep his covenant and remember to obey his precepts.

19 The Lord has established his throne in heaven, and his kingdom rules over all.

20 Praise the Lord, you his angels, you mighty ones who do his bidding, who obey his word.

21 Praise the Lord, all his heavenly hosts, you his servants who do his will.

22 Praise the Lord, all his works everywhere in his dominion. Praise the Lord, my soul..

Psalm 106:7-13

7 When our ancestors were in Egypt, they gave no thought to your miracles; they did not remember your many kindnesses, and they rebelled by the sea, the Red Sea.

8 Yet he saved them for his name’s sake, to make his mighty power known.

9 He rebuked the Red Sea, and it dried up; he led them through the depths as through a desert.

10 He saved them from the hand of the foe; from the hand of the enemy he redeemed them.

11 The waters covered their adversaries; not one of them survived.

12 Then they believed his promises and sang his praise.

13 But they soon forgot what he had done and did not wait for his plan to unfold.

REFLECTIONS:

Read Psalm 103 and Psalm 106 :7-13 and take a moment to answer the following questions: 

➤ Why is gratitude important? And what should we be thankful for? 

➤ What does ungratefulness produce having read these texts? 

CONTENT: 

Knowing how to express thankfulness is an essential part of our prayer life. When Jesus teaches us to finish our prayer by saying, “for yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.” (cf. Matthew 6:13), it is talking about no less than knowing how to demonstrate our thankfulness to God for what He has done. Thankfulness is simply attesting to what has been done, what we have received and who has done it so that we can not only express our thanks to Him, but also give Him the glory that He is due. Knowing how to be thankful is extremely important for numerous reasons.

Firstly, we need to realise that our ungratefulness can become an obstacle in our prayer life. It could be that today our prayers are not answered according to the measure that God wants to, not because God cannot do it, but simply because we don’t know how to be thankful to God for what He has already done. Often we behave like spoilt children who deserve everything. 

Even if it is certain that God loves us and that He wants to give us the best, He doesn’t owe us anything, and everything that we have is only the fruit of His love and His grace. To be thankful is a heart attitude. 

Thankfulness towards God keeps us in an attitude of humility and dependence on God. There is also something fundamental in thankfulness: it keeps us away from all forms of legalism or our own justice. To be thankful is to have a heart that knows that we don’t deserve anything and that everything that we do have, and that God does for us, is the result of His love. God answers our prayers not because of what we do, but because of who we are. To be thankful keeps our heart in a correct attitude that depends on God and seeks to honour and please Him.

Our soul is naturally ungrateful because our human nature, separated from God, is self-centred, not fixed on God and our neighbour. My wife and I have two wonderful children and I discovered that we did not need to teach them how to ask for what they wanted; it was natural. On the other hand, we had to make sure that we taught them to say please and thank you. That is the reason why David teaches us to teach our soul to thank God for all of His blessings, without forgetting any of them (cf. Psalm 103:2). Thankfulness is essential because it opens the door to answered prayer. In the same way that it is better to give to those who know how to be thankful, God takes pleasure in answering the prayers of people who know how to be thankful towards Him and to glorify Him. Prayer is a dialogue in which thankfulness maintains an important place.

To be thankful frees faith because it reminds us of what God has done in the past. You see, He is always the same. That is one of the reasons why we find that so many of the Psalms retell the exploits of God amongst the people of Israel—for example, the fact that He split the sea in two so the people could escape on foot safely (cf. Psalm 66:6, 74:13, 77:19-20 etc). It is not about being nostalgic and focussed on the past. On the contrary, it is recognising who God is. He is the same yesterday, today and forever (cf. Hebrews 13:8). Knowing how to be thankful frees our faith for the miracle and answer to prayer that we need today because it allows us to separate ourselves from what we are in the process of living, so that that we can centre ourselves on God, on His grandeur, His power and His love.

We have to be thankful from the moment when we ask, because right from this moment we know that God will answer our prayer. This means that we don’t need to wait to receive and to see the result of our prayer in the physical world in order to demonstrate our thankfulness. We can simply already thank Him and praise Him for what we have prayed for, knowing that He is acting and that our answer is on its way, just as Jesus taught us (cf. Matthew 6:13).

Why not take a peaceful moment before God to remember everything that He has done for you and start to praise Him and give Him glory for all of it? You could even make your own prayer book where you write down not only your subjects and specific requests, but also your subjects of thankfulness. Also write down your questions to God and His answers. Make a journal and you will see that your prayer life will be transformed. 

MY DECISION:

➤ What I have understood for my own personal life: 

➤ What I am deciding to do in my life based upon what I have just learnt: 

➤ What you decide to do today will determine who and what you will be tomorrow!

Adapted from "un disciple en marche" copyright 2018 by Luc Favre, published by Vie Victorieuse.. Available at www.vievictorieuse.org.