Today's Devotional Thought
November 01, 2010 by Wendy Foreman
Pray Continually
Be joyful, be prayerful, and be thankful. These are the words that God has given Paul to give to us. As I read these words, I stop for a minute and ask myself, do I do all 3 of these in my daily walk? I would have to say NO! I do strive daily, as I am sure you do, to please God in the way that I live and interact with those in my life.
Our joy, prayers, and thankfulness should not waiver in the midst of what we face in our lives as Christians. But, doing these 3 things goes against our natural instinct. When we face something tough, if we are honest, our first response may be to pray, but it is not usually thankfulness or joy. As we mature in our faith in Jesus, we grow to understand that in spite of our circumstances, we need be joyful and thankful and immediately go into prayer mode. You see, this is God’s will. As we scan the end of this verse, we see that this joy, thankfulness, and prayer “is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.??? But, I think maybe that is the part we skip over when we look at these verses. It is His will that we display and experience all three of these responses. When we can do this, in spite of how we are feeling, He will honor that and it will become easier for us to do them. We will see God’s hand in our circumstances even when they are bad and perhaps be able to even pray that God will show us the good in them and how we can share that with others.
Friends, we are not promised a life that is easy but we are promised a God who will walk through our life with us and who will help us be strong when we are weak. So that alone should cause us to be full of joy, prayer and thankfulness.
Allow me to encourage you today to approach each day as a day that you will show joyfulness, prayerfulness and thankfulness in every situation. Will this be easy? A resounding no would be my answer, however this verse tells us that to do those things is God’s will for us. We as parents tell our children often how certain things are best for them and God, in these verses, I believe, is telling us that He knows what is best for us. Listen to Him today and show those around you the joy of the Lord and true thankfulness for all that you have in this life and how praying continually is what helps you and strengthens you to do those things.
December