Give Them Many Reasons to Thank You

We’ve all been there before. Another believer in Jesus Christ experiences a challenge and asks for prayer. What is our first instinct?

We pray to have the Lord quickly remove the challenge from the believer’s life.

• "I am sick." "Please heal them!"
• "I need a new job." "Please get them a new job."
• "I need a new car." "Please get them a new car."
• "I am struggling in my relationship with my Mom." "Please heal their relationship."

Am I right? Is this familiar to you?

Did you ever think of why we pray for quick answers to prayers? Could it be that we are idealists who desire no inconvenience, trouble, heartache, or suffering in life? Could it be that we desire “heaven on earth”, a paradise where we are comfortable and at peace every hour of every day of our lives? If so, the root of such thinking is bad doctrine, the belief that “if only those nasty circumstances in life would go away, we would be happy.”

Many people understand that God is a loving God. Therefore, they believe that He surely wants us to be "happy". Therefore, if we pray to have our troubles removed He will certainly answer such prayers promptly. Our prayers become a “Get Out of Jail” card in Monopoly. Here comes trouble. We pray. Trouble is gone. Off to the beach we go. If we believe hard enough that He will quickly remove our trouble, He will gladly do that for us.

However, we all know this is not how prayer “works”. We often pray for the sick person but they are not healed. We often pray for someone to get a new job but they remain unemployed. We pray for a new car but we can never afford the purchase. We pray for a healed relationship but the trouble continues.

Our worldview that God is to cater quickly to our every plea for relief collides with the reality that He doesn't answer prayers that way.

Our fingers slowly begin to open wide and point toward heaven. God is not doing His job. He’s not being loving. He’s not following the script and promptly doing as He was asked. Within a short while we are angry with Him. We are victims of the alleged cruelty or incompetence of the Almighty. We suffer confusion, bewildered that our prayers for relief have not been answered quickly by the supposedly loving and sovereign God who can do anything He wants.

I think the problem is not with God. It’s with our ignorance of His mindset. We don’t understand that God’s highest objective for us is the transformation of our hearts and minds. He wants to see us mature in Christ and to become more like His children. To be honest, there is nothing that gets our attention to our need to become more Christ-like than the realization that our life is out of our control. Disappointments, inconveniences, frustrations, heartaches, suffering, and even unanswered prayers have a way of teaching us that we are mortal and fully dependent upon God for everything. “Circumstances” in life have a way of proving to us that we are not the little gods who we think we are. Therefore, there are valuable lessons to learn when it seems like God is ignoring our prayers.

A single mother asked the Lord that her two sons would become more courageous. A few weeks later, she is diagnosed with Stage 3 cervical cancer. What? Not only didn’t God answer her prayer but He made her life ten times worse!

Her loving Father whispered to her one day that she had the cancer precisely to answer her prayer for her boys to have courage. You see, she was going to model for her two sons what faith and courage look like as they watched her character as she navigated through the treatments and the miserable days. Her sons learned how to be courageous and the divine purpose for the illness was accomplished. A short time later the woman enjoyed complete remission of the cancer and a return to full health.

When I pray for the immediate ____________ (insert “healing”, “job”, “house”, “car”, “resolution to a conflict”, etc.,) in someone’s situation, I may be asking God to deny that person the spiritual lesson God has planned for the person to learn from their season of struggle. Therefore, there must be another way to pray for a family member or a friend who is facing a difficult time.

“Father, give them many reasons to thank You this very day for Your goodness to them.”

I have been praying this way for quite some time now. Why?

• It invites God to do as He sees fit in the situation our friend is in.
• It invites God to teach our friend even today a valuable spiritual lesson that they will thank God for.
• It asks that our friend will be grateful this very day even if they are not delivered from their trouble.
• It asks that Jesus Christ will be glorified by our friend’s thankful spirit.
• Asking for the person to be able to give thanks suggests joys they will experience that were never expected. You are asking for something wonderful to happen for them.
• It allows God to act His way and bring about the perfect solutions our friend needs to find joy and contentment regardless of the circumstances.
• Asking for the person to be able to give thanks includes the thankfulness that could come if God does heal, give the person a new job, a new car, and a restored relationship.

When a dear friend asks for immediate relief from their trial, yes, by all means ask God to relieve them immediately if it is His will. However, consider also praying that they will have many reasons to thank God for His goodness to them. In so doing you are inviting our Creator to do what He does best - creatively work in people's lives in ways we could not imagine to bring about lasting joy.