Gratitude in Prayer

How do you begin your prayers each day? Do you start with what you need from God?

Let's face it, for most of us, time is precious and we want to make sure that the Lord knows what we need help with.

Let me challenge you to begin each prayer session with thankfulness and gratitude for what God has done.
All three of my children were born prematurely and healthy, and even though the oldest is now 23 I still thank Him each day for their healthy births.

You must know how it feels when you do something nice for your loved ones and they don't even notice, or say "thank-you". Instead, they complain about something you didn't do right!

If you've read "The Secret", this is talked about as the gratitude principle. The universe keeps giving us more of what we put our energy into. If we gripe and complain, more of the stuff to gripe and complain about comes our way. If we are thankful, more of things to be thankful about comes our way.

More than anything else, God desires a relationship with us.

He knows our needs, althought He still wants us to petition and pray fervently for those needs.

Sometimes I even feel that God is testing me to see if I will give-up praying for something because I haven't seen results.

Each prayer session for me begins with thanking God for the things in my life that He needs to be thanked for, and some of those things I thank Him everyday for!

Recently, I have been praying for my middle son to be more social toward Bill and me. He doesn't always talk a lot. About a month ago I mentioned to Bill that I thought Brian was opening up more to me-although he probably only said two words! I began to thank-God for the change in his attitude, even though it was so slight.
Earlier this week, he was talking up a storm to me! He talked to me more in two days, than in two years!!
It is important to thank God for what there is to be thankful for, and pray for what needs praying for. I don't care what your situation, there must be something you can be thankful for.

External praise and thankfulness=internal worship

What can you be thankful for today?