“Enter into his gates with thanksgiving, and into his courts with praise: Be thankful unto him and bless his name.” Psalm 100:4 KJV
How do you pray? Do you beg God to fulfil that desire, or do you thank him in faith?
We know how to get what we want from others. We’ve seen the power of gratitude and how it opens doors when we start our request with thanksgiving.
But for God, we often just go head-on, asking for what we want. Sometimes we demand and try some extortion-like statements like, “If you do this, then I will know that you are God.”
I assume we do this because we don’t know better, or we’ve grown with the belief that God is Mr. Fix It. But like everything else, there are systems for prayer. And one key part of it is Thanksgiving.
When you give thanks for past blessings and give thanks for blessings yet to come, you enter His presence faster than you think. Doing it this way also shows how much faith you have in Him.
How does Thanksgiving empower us for the work ahead?
When Jesus wanted to solve the food shortage problem on the Mount, he took the little food in hand and thanked God for it. A miracle of multiplication happened instantly.
When we genuinely thank God for how we’ve been empowered, with no ulterior motives, we get filled afresh.
Life gets difficult and even the assignment that came from God will have its challenges. But counting our blessings increases the joy in our hearts.
This joy is what helps us get the miracles of tomorrow.
When praying concerning anything, including the works of my hands, I take a gratitude-first approach. It’s how Jesus taught us to pray and it’s what he did.
So enough of being the needy child who always says, “Give me”. Sometimes, God wants to receive from you too, and it’s nothing more than, “Thanks Dad”.
“For me to show more gratitude to God and those around me, I must start doing these things…”
There are many ways to ensure we stay grateful. You could keep a gratitude journal or intentionally start any conversation with God by saying thank you.
And if it’s difficult to see what you should be grateful for, there’s nothing bad about that. Pray for your eyes to be open to see and appreciate the beauty of this thing called “life”.
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