Prayer that Opens Doors: Thanks, episode 121

0:00 If you love a prodigal, you can discover help and hope for your wilderness journey right here at the When You Love a Prodigal podcast. And also help and hope for your own life journey. So the pattern has been the same with all my grandkids. Whenever someone does something for a child, the parent says, what do you say? The correct answer, of course, is thank you. We humans aren't naturally grateful, and it takes years of training for us to remember to say thank you when someone is kind or helpful or generous to us.

0:41 God has reserved the same reality. He felt it was necessary to remind us on several occasions to say thank you. Listen to these, verses you might be familiar with. In 1 Thessalonians 5, give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus. Yep, that's what it says. Give thanks in all circumstances. Then in Philippians 4, do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.

1:27 What was that? Every situation. Pray. Ask. With thanksgiving. And then in Ephesians 5, always giving thanks to God the Father for everything in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Seriously, he wants us to give thanks about everything, always, all the time? Sounds impossible, doesn't it? Last week when we looked at prayer that opens doors, praise, we had the same response. How can we be praising God all the time? And how can we be thanking God in every circumstance?

2:12 As with children, practice really helps. And the will to practice, to make it a habit, to grow a truly grateful heart, is not so hard when we like the circumstances of our lives. Yeah, I can be thankful then. When we're healthy, have a good job, delight in loving relationships, have happy children, feel accepted and loved when we're experiencing success, when we receive a desired surprise, all these are easy to say thank you for. The key is to remember to do it, to remember who is the giver of all good things, and to express our gratitude.

3:00 But when health is threatened, a job is lost, a relationship is broken, children are making destructive choices, loneliness and rejection abound, success is elusive, and all surprises are not desired ones. How can we say thank you? But God asks us to. These truths help to motivate me. The first, giving thanks acknowledges that he is God and he is good. When life's circumstances are challenging and yet I say thank you, Lord, I am saying to my heavenly Father, I know you are God.

3:48 I am recognizing that you are El Elyon, the Most High God, and that you are El Shaddai, the Almighty. You are sovereign and over all and in control. But when life seems unfair or painful, confusing, scary, it is also important to realize, to remember that he is God and he is good. Just look at these assurances of God's goodness. In Jeremiah 32, he says, I will make an everlasting covenant with them. Because God is saying this about his people, his children.

4:28 I will never, never stop doing good for them. I will inspire them to fear me so that they will never turn away from me. I will rejoice in doing them good and will assuredly plant them in this land with all my heart and soul. This was said to wandering people who didn't know what the next thing that was going to happen was. In Psalm 34, taste and see that the Lord is good. Blessed is the one who takes refuge in him. And in Psalm 86, you, Lord, are forgiving and good, abounding in love to all who call to you.

5:18 I love that. He's saying God is doing good. He's forgiving and he's good and he's abounding. He's pouring out abundant love and goodness on us. In Psalm 100, for the Lord is good and his love endures forever. His faithfulness continues through all generations. And in Psalm 119, just in case you hadn't caught the picture that God is good, the psalmist says, you are good, Lord, and what you do is good. Teach me your decrees.

6:00 And in Psalm 145, the Lord is good to all. He has compassion on all he has made. I love that because he knows how weak I am and how easily I fail and how I'm not always grateful and praising him. And he has compassion on us. He's made us and he knows, he tells us in Psalm 103 that he remembers that we are dust. And even though he's promised us goodness and everything we need, he's also compassionate that we are weak.

6:40 So giving thanks not only acknowledges that we understand that God is God and God is good, but it also expresses our trust in God. It's saying more than just being obedient. It's saying, God, I trust you even though I don't like or understand what's going on. As we increasingly experience God's godness and his goodness, we find our hearts and minds are more and more able to trust him. Fear of all the uncertainties and concerns in our life erodes our trust.

7:21 We find it harder to believe that God loves us and wants good for us. Learning to say thank you even amidst pain and loss restores our trust. God can go forward with confidence that we know who holds the future and that he knows, he cares, and he is able in every situation. Giving thanks also opens the door. So we're looking at prayer that opens doors, praise, this time thanks, and it opens the doors for God to work. I found that when hard circumstances restrain my gratitude, it is so I am holding tightly to the key to my heart and the key to my circumstances.

8:08 But when I thank God, even when I don't feel very thankful, it is like I hand him the key that locked the door and it will enable him to unlock it. With that thank you key, he opens my eyes to begin to see the good he is doing, small though it may appear at first. He opens my mind to accept that his goodness will prevail over time, if not immediately. We know about that when we have a prodigal. And that key opens my heart to restore trust that will recognize that this all-powerful God is truly acting in love and compassion for me.

8:57 When our son joined our family at almost 10 years old, life had dealt him some pretty hard blows. Gratitude was not in him. We worked hard to teach him gratitude in general and especially toward God, even in hard times. Slowly, thanks became part of his vocabulary and even began to reside in his heart. For many years he worked doing landscaping and once while trimming a hedge by a fence with a chainsaw, the chainsaw hit the fence, kicked back and hit him in the forehead, barely missing his eyes and leaving a nasty gash.

9:42 When I got to the hospital and asked how he was, he said, it hurts a lot, maybe more colorfully he said that. The first thing I did, he said, was call 911. The next thing I did was say thank you, Lord. God has done a good work in him. That wasn't an easy thank you. This past year, since my husband left for heaven, has revealed that I am better able to give thanks in everything than I would have thought possible. Even as he had left before our eyes, my children and his brother, I turned to them, put my arms around them and prayed, thank you, Lord.

10:34 And I named the many things that I was thankful for. And throughout this year, in the midst of missing him, of many tears, thank you, Lord, has come from my lips over and over. In ways I don't fully understand, saying thank you begins to open doors. It's as if those words said in hesitant trust give God that key to us, to our hearts and minds. And with that key, he unlocks doors that are shut by our pain, our anger, our fear, our resistance. We begin to get glimpses of answers to our prayers, of more steps forward than backward, of new attitudes, and occasionally of outright transformation when it comes to our lives with our prodigals.

11:30 So my encouragement to you this Thanksgiving season is to do just that, to give thanks. In fact, I would encourage you to every day this month and the days ahead that you would take time to write down at least one thing you're thankful for and seek to consciously be aware when something disappoints you or causes pain or hurt or anger, that you stop and say thank you, Lord. I trust you to bring good in this situation.

12:10 But if one is all you can manage, one thing to say thank you for, God will gladly receive that and still begin that transforming work in your heart and mind. And may your Thanksgiving this year, with or without your loved wanderer, reflect your trust in God's love and goodness for you and your prodigal. God bless you.