Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours!

Colossians 4:2 has a thought for us during this holiday week: “Continue in prayer, and watch in the same with thanksgiving.”

Too often when we rise from our prayer we haven’t left the trouble with God, but continue to rehearse the problem in an expectancy of doubt. I think it is fine and human to remain concern and still looking for the solution.

Doubt in prayer is asking but not expecting. Belief in prayer is asking and giving thanks to our Lord for listening and knowing that He will answer, and He will answer according to His wisdom, will, and timing. It is during the timing – short or long – that we continue to give thanks.

Colossians 4:2 gives us a new way to reflect on our unanswered prayers, and that is to rise from our knees in thanksgiving. Yes, you can have a concern for the problem but it is now a concern that you are not shouldering on your own, because your Father in Heaven has your problem.

The more you develop the practice of thanksgiving in your prayer life the more you’ll experience the peace and presence of God in thanksliving.

(Sorry, I once had an old retired pastor in one of past congregations and every year at Thanksgiving time he would eagerly look for a way to mention in our church that we are called not just to thanksgiving but to “thanksliving” and I think of him and his powerful sentence message during the Thanksgiving Holiday.)

Colossians 4:2 gives us what could be a new Thanksgiving Holiday tradition of thanking our Lord for hearing and answering our prayers, even if we don’t see the answer laying out before us. Let’s believe and express that belief in thanksgiving.

Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours!