In other churches I have served we began each staff meeting with a time of devotion. Usually the staff members shared that responsibility, with each person taking a turn. On one occasion our Minister of Recreation talked about what he had learned about prayer from his four-year-old son. Each evening my ministerial colleague would go in and have prayer with each of his children. What he began to notice was the changing tenor of the prayers as his children grew older. He said that his older children’s prayers were more and more punctuated with needs of intercession or statements of contrition. However, his four-year-old’s prayers were primarily ones of thanksgiving. He began with a “Thank You, God, for . . .” which would be the first line of a whole litany of gratitude. My ministerial friend said that his son had taught him much, because he came to realize how little he exercised thanksgiving in his own prayer life, and that he now began his day with his own litany of “Thank You, God . . .”
After hearing that devotion I started paying attention to my own prayer life and noticed how lacking it was in gratitude. It almost seemed that I came to God with my own list of things that needed to be done. I had so many issues that required divine intervention, not to mention relationships that were in need of repair, or even health problems in the family or congregation that needed a divine touch. But how little did I stop to consider the many blessings that came my way on such a consistent basis.
Therefore, I changed the pattern of my prayers. Taking a cue from my four-year-old teacher, I began my prayers each morning with an extended time of thanksgiving. Even using the Lord’s Prayer as a model, I would begin “hallowing God’s name,” acknowledging the incredible majesty of God. Why, just wondering at the amazing complexity of the universe – from nighttime gazes at the Milky Way in the heavens to quiet little observations of a square foot of ground in a flower bed, I began to see how delicate and intricate and amazing God’s world truly is. Each day is a gift of wonder if we would just pay attention.
The same thing is true for people. Have you ever stopped to think how each person in your life is a gift, that each person has a mystery of grace about them that makes the world so much more interesting? In that regard I began praying differently for my own family. Each morning I would look at a particular family member and thank God for the ways he or she had blessed me. And my prayers helped in our relationships. Why, by taking time to pay attention to family members, I began to appreciate them all the more. Their interests, their peculiar quirks, their senses of humor, their hopes and ambitions all became insights into the creative artistry of God.
This discipline became so enlightening that I started using it with folks outside the family. I began to pray for colleagues at work and even cranky people I had the habit of bumping into on a regular basis. Looking at them from God’s perspective helped in giving me a new way to look at them. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the gifted German theologian, once said that a pastor’s primary job is to intercede for his congregants and others. I think Bonhoeffer is right, but it’s not just a pastoral thing. The community of faith becomes infinitely richer when we are praying for each other and thanking God for each other.
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