What is your heart grateful for today?

You have probably learned an acronym for prayer at some point. 

-ACTS: Adoration, Confession, Thanksgiving, and Supplication

-PRAY: Praise, Repentance, Ask, and Yield

-The HEART method: Honor God, Examine your life, Ask for help, Request for others, and Thank God

Prayer acronyms are helpful to guide and direct our prayers. Notice that each acronym contains the need to express gratitude at some point during a prayer. So often we run to God with our needs, our concerns for others, or because we simply know we should pray about something. How does our thanksgiving help us to pray?

When we include a time of gratitude, we remember who God is and all that God has done in the past. We cannot offer thanks to God unless we pause to be humbly grateful for his work in our lives. When our thoughts of praise and thanksgiving begin our prayers, we will often pray with a holy perspective.

We might pray with confidence because we have realized all that God has already done in our lives. We may be more able to trust a loved one to our God who loves them perfectly. 

Our gratitude will cause us to remember how God has worked in the past and help us to see God at work in the present. We can miss our answers from God if we don’t stop to offer our thanks for the prayers he has already answered in our lives.

Paul urged Timothy to pray for others, reminding him to pray with thanksgiving. Wisdom is offering our gratitude to God. That prayer can begin with the words we often sing, “Praise God from whom all blessings flow.” Or, “To God be the glory, great things he has done!”