Lent: A Season of Prayer: Day 3
I think one of the most life-changing views of prayer for me came from Ann Voskamp. Her book One Thousand Gifts has been a big inspiration -- HUGE.
Prayer is all around us in the thanking God for the ordinary, the mundane, the extraordinary.
The practice of counting it all as joy has been a challenge of hers that I have accepted.
As I type this, I'm on #923 gifts of eucharisteo - of thanksgiving, grace, mercy, joy.
That is 923 prayers of seeing God at work all around me, and in seeking his purpose in the things I would not necessarily count as joy.........
From her book:
Prayer, to be prayer, to have any power to change anything, must first speak thanks. In every situation, by prayer & petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. Prayer without ceasing is only possible in a life of continual thanks.
Daniel 6:10
Daniel prayed three times a day giving thanks to his God...
Daniel was only a man of prayer because he was a man of thanks, and the only way to become a woman of prayer is to be a woman of thanks....
Counting those gifts daily - that momentary time to stop and reflect in prayer for the good all around me despite the not-so-good of circumstances I must live with -- has given me a freedom I have not felt in ages.
It has given me a HOPEISM that heals.......perhaps not my son...........yet.......
But me.
