Prayer with Thanksgiving

I haven’t updated this in awhile, and after a good sermon is a good time to do so.

I mentioned the cancer scare in my last post, but not that it subsequently got worse. I had a biopsy done under general anesthesia, and the doctor found three places to biopsy — but the results came back BENIGN. I have “reactive lymphoid hyperplasia” — basically some overgrowth of lymphoid tissue, reacting to infection somewhere else in my body. But the important thing is that it is not cancer!

Still, I think the lessons I referred to in my last post still bear thinking about.

And today the pastor preached on Philippians 4:4-9, and the part that applies to this is the part about bringing your requests to God *with thanksgiving.*

Now, I know this is the way to pray! I think of myself as good at this — but that’s an arrogance that really has no place in prayer!

And certainly, it appears I can apply this in my prayers for others. After all, if I am thanking God as I pray, that implies a level of trust — that He is actually going to work this out. But it should not imply that it must work out the way I say it should. Can I let God be God?

Last Spring, when I was leading a study in the Psalms, it struck me that David doesn’t spend a lot of time telling God what to do. He lays out his worries and his needs and his fears. He asks God to act. And then he thanks God because the Psalmist knows he will come through. He thanks God for what He’s going to do.

That might be a good model in prayer for others. Can I thank God for what He’s going to do in my ex-husband’s life, even though that’s going to be totally apart from me? Can I trust God enough to believe that, as He has brought all kinds of good into my life through the situation, He will also bring lots of good into my ex-husband’s life — even if he never does even admit that what he did was, at the very least, unkind?

Oh, how I dance around what I’m willing to hope for him! Because it’s so hard for me to admit that, just maybe, I don’t actually know what’s best for him, and, just maybe, it’s no longer any of my business.

But God loves him and knows him. And that is true of anyone else I may care to pray for.

And I am so thankful that God is in control and not me!

Take the ones I love, Lord. Walk with them on the path that is best for them. Thank You for the path on which You’re leading me, and thank You that You know what is best even for these ones I love.