Someone once taught me to pray through the acronym ACTS: Adoration, Confession, Thanksgiving, and Supplication. Out of the four, I’d say that I do the “T” the least often. I do my share of adoring God in prayer and confessing my sins to Him, and I have my share of supplications that I bring before Him. But I often neglect giving thanks. I guess it’s my drivenness and future orientation; I rarely take the time to look back on good things that have happened, ever looking ahead to what needs to be done.
Yesterday, though, I took some time to be thankful before God. I reunited with a former student of mine who was last in our program three years ago and is now a young man, running a business on the side and eager to mentor our current participants. A friend of mine from college is going through some hard times, and I was encouraged to hear him speak of how his faith and his Christian friends are anchoring him through this ordeal. Another college friend of mine is back from the mission field, while yet another college friend is about to go, and both have grown spiritually since we last spent significant time together.
In these four lives, and in so many others, God is at work. I spend a lot of time worrying about all that is not right in this world, all the relationships and places and systems that need God to come in and heal. So it was good yesterday to be reminded of these four lives where God is doing stuff, and to be thankful.
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