Monday, March 24

Thanksgiving Takes Faith

Monday, March 24

I Thessalonians 5:18

“Pastor’s Daily Prayer” is not a daily prayer for me, but it should be. In the 1941 Lutheran Agenda (a worship book for most regular and special worship activities: funerals, weddings, baptism, installations…), the editors also included a 4-page prayer, with that title. It is, indeed, a beautiful and potent prayer, and as such I have included it in this booklet with CPH permission.

If you read it… or better yet pray it… you will begin to see the manifold requests and thanksgivings in it. This passage sticks out in my mind as a prayer that requires faith: “Graciously take into Thy fatherly care the sick and the needy, all widows and orphans, and all who are in any trouble, temptation, anguish of labor, peril of death, or any other adversity.  Comfort them, O God, with Thy Holy Spirit, that they may patiently endure their afflictions and acknowledge them as a manifestation of Thy Fatherly will.” 

Father knows best, right?

That is what is behind St. Paul’s admonition to the young church at Thessalonica when he wrote by the Holy Spirit’s inspiration: “…in everything give thanks; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.” (I Thess. 5:18) It seems to me that I can only genuinely give thanks for the “trouble, temptation, anguish of labor, peril of death…” if I really trust that the Lord knows what He is doing.  And it helps to remember that the Lord knows me thoroughly.  If I thank Him for, say, trouble, and admit to Him in my prayer that I’m struggling to be sincere, He is doubly aware of that struggle.  And He knows I want to be 100% “in.”

We all have Good Friday-like moments in our life where the anguish is enormous, and we cannot figure out what the Lord is possibly thinking. Paul’s list of personal struggles in II Corinthians 11 is astonishing to consider, or that the Angel of the Lord was camped around Paul and approved each one of those burdens and crosses to pass through Him to the apostle. (Psalm 34:7)

“Good Friday” is correctly named. On that very bad day, God did something very good. He paid a bill for others, at a terrible price to Himself.

Thank God — for everything — daily if you can.