More thanks and fewer knots

Be joyful always; pray continually; give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus.  1 Thessalonians 5:16-18

When my sister turned 50, I wished her a happy birthday and added, “Welcome to the decade of ‘I wish I’d learned this 30 years ago!’” 

How awesome, yet humbling, the perspectives we gain and the understandings that congeal as the miles of our journey accumulate behind us.  We muse now and then about “what might have been” had we been a little wiser along the way, but we’ve learned by now not to wallow in regret – it does no good, a distraction at best.  Reflecting instead on God's faithfulness in our past, we more readily jettison our ways for his ways and relinquish our will to his will. 

Among the biggest lessons I’ve learned more recently is not to pray anxiously.  (It would have been so helpful to have “gotten this” years ago!)  For what does it say about trust when our tongue is faithful in petition but our stomach is knotted in doubt? 

We need to step back and ask, who is more faithful – us in our prayer, or God in his care?  Who is more caring – us in offering up the burdens of our hearts, or God who placed them there in the first place?  And which is more powerful – our anxiety, or God's authority? 

There is nothing new about praying anxiously; the temptation to fear and to doubt is a continual reminder of an ancient strain between a loving God and a rebellious people.  Surely, Paul’s exhortation two millennia ago still resounds today: “Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition with thanksgiving, present your requests to God” (Philippians 4:6).  He posits it not as a magic formula or an upward manipulation, but as an act of belief, relinquishment and celebration of our promise-keeping God.

So I’ve been trying it – praying and thanking God for hearing me and answering in a wisdom far greater than my own.  I must say it’s been exciting to trust God and to leave my burdens in his hands.  And thanking him for his unchanging faithfulness has brought me only peace. 

More thanks and fewer knots.  Why didn’t I learn this 30 years ago? 

Oh well, better late than never, right?