HOW
TO PRAY
R.
A. TORREY
CHAPTER
VIII
PRAYING
WITH THANKSGIVING
There
are two words often overlooked in the lesson about prayer which Paul gives us
in Phil. 4:6,7, "In nothing be anxious; but in everything by prayer and
supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God. And
the peace of God, which passeth all understanding,
shall guard your hearts and your thoughts in Christ Jesus." (R.V.) The two important words often overlooked are,
"WITH THANKSGIVING."
In
approaching God to ask for new blessings, we should never forget to return
thanks for blessings already granted. If any one of us would stop and think how
many of the prayers which we have offered to God have been answered, and how
seldom we have gone back to God to
return thanks for the answers thus given, I am
sure we would be overwhelmed with confusion. We should be just as definite in
returning thanks as we are in prayer. We come to God with most
specific petitions, but when we return thanks to
Him, our thanksgiving is indefinite and general.
Doubtless
one reason why so many of our prayers lack power is because we have neglected
to return thanks for blessings already received. If any one were to constantly
come to us asking help from us, and should never say "Thank you" for
the help thus given, we would soon tire of helping one so ungrateful. Indeed,
regard for the one we were
helping would hold us back from encouraging such rank ingratitude. Doubtless
our heavenly Father out of a wise regard for
our highest welfare oftentimes refuses to
answer petitions that we send up to Him in order that we may be brought to a
sense of our ingratitude and taught to be thankful.
God
is deeply grieved by the thanklessness and ingratitude of which so many of us
are guilty. When Jesus healed the ten lepers and only one came back to give Him
thanks, in wonderment and pain He exclaimed,
"Were
not the ten cleansed? but where are the nine?"
(Luke 17:17, R.V.)
How
often must He look down upon us in sadness at our forgetfulness of His repeated
blessings, and His frequent answer to our prayers.
Returning
thanks for blessings already received increases our faith and enables us to
approach God with new boldness and new assurance. Doubtless the reason so many
have so little faith when they pray, is because they take so little time to
meditate upon and thank God for blessings already received. As one meditates
upon the answers to prayers already granted, faith waxes bolder and bolder, and
we come to feel in the very depths of our souls that there is
nothing too hard for the Lord. As we reflect upon the
wondrous goodness of God toward us on the one hand, and upon the other hand
upon the little thought and strength and time that we ever put into
thanksgiving, we may well humble ourselves before God and confess our sin.
The
mighty men of prayer in the Bible, and the mighty men of prayer throughout the
ages of the church's history have been men who were much given to thanksgiving
and praise. David was a mighty man of prayer, and how his Psalms abound with
thanksgiving and praise. The apostles were mighty men of prayer; of them we
read that "they were continually in the temple, praising and blessing
God." Paul was a mighty man of prayer, and how often in his epistles he
bursts out
in definite thanksgiving to God for definite blessings and
definite answers to prayers. Jesus is our model in prayer as in everything
else. We find in the study of His life that His manner of returning
thanks at the simplest meal was so noticeable that
two of His disciples recognized Him by this after His resurrection.
Thanksgiving
is one of the inevitable results of being filled with the Holy Spirit and one
who does not learn "in everything to give thanks" cannot continue to
pray in the Spirit. If we would learn to pray with power we would do well to
let these two words sink
deep into our hearts: "WITH
THANKSGIVING."