There has always been the banter back and forth about when to put up a Christmas tree.  Only in December.  The day after Thanksgiving.  A few weeks before Thanksgiving.  And anywhere in between. I am a first week of December kind of gal.  But the purpose of this post is not about staking claim to the right time.  It’s about rushing past both Thanksgiving and thanksgiving.

Thanksgiving is one of my favorite holidays and times of the year.  Ideally, it’s a time that should cause us to slow down.  With our lives so busy and overcommitted, we nary leave time to settle ourselves into a posture of thankfulness.  We’re too busy making our lists of wants or don’t haves to be concerned with being thankful for what is right in front of us.

Could you imagine the shift that would occur within our hearts and minds if we simply focused our attention to thankfulness.

We’ve been dealing with some health struggles with one of our sons.  I won’t sugarcoat it: it’s been a frustrating time – a time of just mental exhaustion.  With each passing week, I can feel the angst building up.  I have certainly been praying about this.  I’ve been petitioning the Lord for wisdom, for patience, and for answers, but the other night I felt compelled to approach the Lord in a different way.

As I was lying down in bed getting ready to pray, I simply began to list the ways that the Lord has undeniably worked in my life over the past few years.  I began to thank the Lord for each occurance, for each tangible evidence of His care, for His ever-present nature in times of ease and times of unrest.  And as I closed my eyes, I drifted off to sleep with thankfulness, and nothing else, on my mind.  It was so incredibly peaceful.  I truly felt the words of Isaiah 26:3, “You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you, because he trusts in you.“

I had fully intended to follow up a time of thankfulness with a call to the Lord for His guidance and help, but I never got to it.  And for that, I am thankful.  The Lord reminded me that even though I never uttered a word about sickness, help, clarity, or wisdom, He already knew that these things were heavy on my heart.  My cries and calls had not been falling upon deafened ears but had been imprinted on the heart of God and remembered.  Psalm 56:8 brings confirmation to this fact: “You have taken account of my miseries; Put my tears in Your bottle. Are they not in Your book?”

That night caused a shift in my thinking to occur about how I petition the Lord.   I am indeed called to bring my requests to my Heavenly Father – what comfort there is in knowing that He wants to hear me.  And while I will continue to lay down my needs at His feet, I can boldly silence those requests and simply rest in the fact that He already knows.  That silence is such a gift.  Resting in the embrace of His remembrance brings such peace. Romans 8:26 reminds me that the Spirit intercedes on my behalf when I simply have no words.  “Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words.“

So instead of coming before Him with the same prayer, for the same needs, in the same desperate state, I will pause that specific prayer and instead focus on thankfulness.  I will enter into the Lord’s presence in awe of what He has done.  I will approach my Heavenly Father with nothing else but gratitude for all that He has allowed.  I will praise Him for His blessings and times of refining allowing my thankfulness to be bathed in an air of intentional contemplative lowliness to God.  I mean that in the very best of ways.  Acknowledging the greatness of God should leave us in speechless wonder as we contemplate His intentional love and care for us.

And while not my motivation, I have found that having a posture of thankfulness to God allows me to reap innumerable benefits myself.  My feelings of angst, worry, loneliness, and fear are replaced with peace, gratitude, and rest.  My inward self-focused gaze on my calamities is turned heavenward to gaze upon my God.  My restlessness is turned to stillness, my doubting to faithful remembrance, and my questioning to trust.

All because of thankfulness.

Friend, don’t let your mind rush past thankfulness.  Don’t relegate it to a customary prayer on the fourth Thursday in November.  Let it be the very core of your being, your preferred posture, and the time with God that you simply cannot live without.