Day 31

This month I've spent my prayer time with thanks, no supplication. I thought I would get to this point feeling richly blessed, that the focus on gratitude would be a wonderful, eye-opening experience.
It was, but not in the way I had expected. First off, it was hard! Not that it was difficult to find things to be grateful for - not at all. I could spend my life thanking God and it would never be enough. God is bountiful, and it was good to focus on that. It was hard, though, not to add requests to my prayers. While praying for a friend who has cancer, I would thank God for that friend, for her doctors, for the people who are caring for her, for His promise of hope. But to not add a prayer for her healing, or for her peace, or for financial provision for her family wasn't easy.
Secondly, I very much felt that something important was missing. At first I thought it was because I am accustomed to asking, that my thank yous are too often accompanied by requests. But as the month wound down, I realized it's because God wants us to come to Him with our petitions. Philippians 4:6 says "Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God." Part of recognizing God as the source of all our blessings is to ask Him for them. It's acknowledging our need for Him and our inability to take care of things on our own. When we come before Him with what matters to us - in petition as well as thankfulness - He gives us peace. Philippians goes on to say "And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus." Letting God be Jehovah Jireh - the God who provides - gives us incredible, inexplicable peace.
And that's what I was missing this month.