Thank God Ahead of Time
means to seek Your Kingdom -- and I worship You for that provision."
This is what I wrote in my private journal on January 8th of this
year, almost four months before I actually got the offer at my new
job. I had been reading in the book of Genesis about Abraham, to whom
God made a series of promises, most of which took decades to fulfill
and the rest of which were not even fulfilled in Abraham's lifetime.
The thing that struck me that morning was that Abraham built an altar
and worshipped God in response to His promise, not His fulfillment of
the promise. I won't repeat here what I wrote in my blog on January
8th, except to say that usually I praise God when He answers my
prayer, not when I first pray that prayer. And I think God wants us
to have faith that says, "I've prayed it, You've heard it, You'll
answer according to Your perfect will, and so I'll certainly worship
You then but I can also worship You now."
Fast-forwarding to the present, I am even more thankful to God for His
provision of my job. I like my co-workers and my office environment,
my pay and hours, and even my commute. But most of all, I like what I
get to dive into, for it scratches where I itch both in terms of
intellectual curiosity and sense of purpose. I tell people that it's
awfully rewarding to open the paper in the morning, read about
something of importance to my city, and say to myself, "We worked on
that."
I took a step of faith to praise Him before He provided, and I praised
Him again when He provided. With the calendar year coming to a close,
I guess I wanted to praise Him yet again for continuing to provide. I
only hope I'll be warm-headed and soft-hearted enough to remember,
when faced with another big prayer or promise, to similarly thank God
ahead of time.
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