October 26 Daily Devotional

Supplication—with thanksgiving

[Paul] tells us that we can take particular things to God, that petition is a legitimate part of prayer.... But wait, there is still one other thing—’by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving’. (Philippians 4:6.) That is one of the most vital of all these terms.... If, while we pray to God, we have a grudge against Him in our hearts, we have no right to expect that the peace of God will keep our hearts, we have no right to expect that the peace of God will keep our heart and our mind. If we go on our knees feeling that God is against us, we may as well get up and go out. No, we must approach Him ‘with thanksgiving’. There must be no doubt as to the goodness of God in our heart.... We must say, ‘I may be in trouble at the moment, but I can thank God for my salvation and that He has sent His Son to die on the Cross for me and for my sins. There is a terrible problem facing me, I know, but He has done that for me ... I will thank Him for the many blessings I have received in the past’. We must just work out with all our mind and with all our energy the reasons for thanking and praising God. We must remind ourselves that He is our Father, that He loves us so much that the very hairs of our head are all numbered. And when we have reminded ourselves of these things we must pour out our heart in thanksgiving ... we must come into His presence with a loving, praising, worshipping adoration, and confident faith, and then make our requests known unto Him. The prayer that Paul advocates, in other words, is not a desperate cry in the dark, not some frantic appeal to God without any real thought. No, no, we first realize and recollect that we are worshipping a blessed, glorious God. We worship first and then we make our requests known.

Spiritual Depression, pp. 267–8