“Don’t worry about anything, but in all your prayers ask God for what you need, always asking him with a thankful heart.” (Philippians 4:6 – Good News Translation)
We now reach an important step in staying sane in this crazy world. When we started this process, I talked about humanity’s negative bias. We are always geared in our human nature to be concerned about what we do not have rather than what we do, to be focussed on the negative rather than the positive. So Paul, tells us that we need to be really deliberate in including thanksgiving in our prayers. If we want the peace and joy that this passage speaks about, we cannot simply be focussed on what we do not have, or what is missing in our life. We must focus on the One who is the giver of all things. As Marty Lloyd-Jones writes,
“Thanksgiving is absolutely essential for this reason: if, while we pray to God, we have a grudge against him in our hearts, we have no right to expect that the peace of God will keep our heart and our mind. If we go on our knees feeling that God is against us, we may as well get up and go out. o, we must approach him, ‘with thanksgiving’. There must be no doubt in our heart as to the goodness of God. There must be no question or query; we must have positive reasons for thanking God. We have our problems and troubles but there on our knees we must ask ourselves: ‘What can I thank God for?’ We have to do that deliberately and it is something that we can do.” (Martyn Lloyd-Jones, The Peace of God)
There is something incredibly powerful in choosing to thank God, especially when we are in the midst of crisis, pain and problems. Tim Keller of Redeemer Church in New York writes,
“It’s one thing to be grateful. It’s another to give thanks. Gratitude is what you feel. Thanksgiving is what you do.”
I love the way that the Passion Translation puts this verse:
“Be saturated in prayer throughout each day, offering your faith-filled requests before God with overflowing gratitude.” (Philippians 4:6 – The Passion Translation)
I can almost hear some people saying, ‘But you don’t know my situation. I have nothing to thank God for. Everything is going wrong in my life.’ Please hear me when I say that I do not wish to minimise anyone’s pain or suffering. I know pain, suffering and loss of many different kinds can be and is hard and challenging and I do not wish to minimise this in any way. But my challenge to myself (and to you too) is that, even in the darkest moments, there is always something to thank God for. A few years ago, when my wife, Ros, was undergoing treatment for breast cancer, which was incredibly severe and horrible, there were moments when it looked like we had nothing to thank God for. However, when we focussed in, there always was something. It may have been the love and generosity of a friend bringing round a meal so that we didn’t need to cook that day. It may have been a card, call or text from someone to say that they were thinking of us and praying for us. It may have been a sunny day which brought light into a dark place. If we deliberately choose to push aside that negative bias and to try and find the good and the thankful things in our world, then we will find them. As Christian author and church leader, Priscilla Shearer says,
“When we choose thankful prayer over wallowing in anxiety and worry, we are demonstrating an unwavering trust in God.”
And in those extreme moments, where you feel that there is nothing at all that you can thank God for, why not start by thanking him for some truths which are absolutely true, whatever your circumstances:
- Thank him for your salvation; that he sent his only Son to die on a cross for you and for your sins.
- Thank him that in rising from the dead, Jesus defeated every sin, sickness and problem and that we are free from condemnation.
- Thank him that you have received countless blessings over the days, weeks, months and years.
- Thank him that he is your Father and that you are loved.
Remember that this verse about thanksgiving does not stand on its own. We come to God with thanksgiving in the midst of choosing joy and gentleness, being conscious of his presence and content in our life. Our prayer is being saturated in worship and in the midst of all of this, thankfulness is so much easier. As Nicky Gumbel writes,
“As we give thanks, recollecting answered prayer, it increases our confidence in praying further.” (Nicky Gumbel, A Life Worth Living)
And as Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the theologian who suffered so much at the hands of the Nazis, wrote, “It is only with gratitude that life becomes rich!”
So, let us find the determination to be thankful in every circumstance of life, whether in plenty or in need, in suffering or in victory, in lockdown or in freedom. As Rick Warren of Saddleback Church in California has written:
“In happy moments, PRAISE GOD. In difficult moments, SEEK GOD. In quiet moments, WORSHIP GOD. In painful moments, TRUST GOD. Every moment, THANK GOD.”
Or as Psalm 100 puts it:
1 Shout for joy to the Lord, all the earth.
2 Worship the Lordwith gladness;
come before himwith joyful songs.
3 Know that the Lord is God.
It is he who made us, and we are his;
we are his people,the sheep of his pasture.
4 Enter his gates with thanksgiving
and his courts with praise;
give thanks to him and praise his name.
5 For the Lord is goodand his love endures forever;
his faithfulness continues through all generations.
(Psalm 100 – New International Version)