Be saturated in prayer throughout each day, offering your faith filled requests before God with overflowing gratitude. Philippians 4:6 (TPT)
SUNDAY PRACTICE: Faith Filled Requests.
“Be cheerful with joyous celebration in every season of life. Let joy overflow, for you are united with the Anointed One! Let gentleness be seen in every relationship, for our Lord is ever near. Don’t be pulled in different directions or worried about a thing. Be saturated in prayer throughout each day, offering your faith filled requests before God with overflowing gratitude. Tell him every detail of your life, then God’s wonderful peace that transcends human understanding, will make the answers known to you through Jesus Christ.” Phil 4:4-7 (TPT).
It’s a verse often for comfort and encouragement. But read it again. It’s actually quite challenging.
Celebrate every season of life.
Let joy overflow.
Be gentle in every relationship.
Don’t worry about a thing.
Be saturated in prayer (presence… aware, awake, alive).
Ask for things while being thankful for what you have.
Practice gratitude.
Let your human understanding be transcended by divine peace.
Live into the answers.
Over the last couple of weeks, we’ve looked at expectation, faith, hope, questions, and answers. We can throw as many platitudes at them as we like, but at the end of the day, the tension between where we are and where we want to be is real. That’s part of what Paul is trying to communicate in the verses above.
All human suffering comes from expectation. Expectation produces worry, fear, anger, hurt, pain… When we expect people and things and God and seasons to deliver us something, we almost always get something else. And while that doesn’t mean we should never expect good things, or have hope for our future, we need to practice holding the tension between expectation and gratitude.
PRACTICE: Replace your expectations with gratitude.
Take a few moments, make yourself comfortable, get good and quiet. You might close your eyes, or rest your head back… do whatever makes you feel peaceful. Bring some of your expectations to mind. Hold them for a few minutes. Then, replace those expectations for what you want, and perhaps even for what you fear, and replace them with gratitude for what you do have, and where you are. Offer your faith filled requests before God because after all, we have requests. We want healing and provision and peace and equality and justice for others, ourselves and the world, right? But maintain gratitude for the things you have, the time you’ve spent, the places you’ve been, the lessons you’ve learned, the healing you have experienced, the passion in your heart, the sun on your skin, your love at your side… Hold the tension between expectation and gratitude. Gratitude sets you up to win by freeing you from the outcome of your expectations. No matter what.
Written by Lizzy Milani
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