GRATITUDE and PRAYER

Praise and Thanksgiving

Praising God is the activity of God’s creatures in honoring God because of the acts and the nature of God. Thanksgiving is an expression of gratitude to God for his care and concern, especially as shown through his redemptive acts.

The two are interrelated - praise and thanksgiving - but for tonight let’s try and focus on giving thanks, allowing our prayer life to be saturated with giving thanks.

Lexham Theological Wordbook יָדָה

the majority instances of yādâ in the OT are in Psalms. Like other terms with similar meanings, yādâ is often accompanied by an explanation of the reason for the thanks or praise

Psalm 103:1–5 HCSB

My soul, praise Yahweh, and all that is within me, praise His holy name. My soul, praise the Lord, and do not forget all His benefits. He forgives all your sin; He heals all your diseases. He redeems your life from the Pit; He crowns you with faithful love and compassion. He satisfies you with goodness; your youth is renewed like the eagle.

It is unfortunate that the HCSB translates the Hebrew word, ברך , as ‘praise’ instead of more accurately, ‘bless.’

Praising God and ‘blessing’God are very similar ideas, yet a distinction can be made.

The Lexham Bible Dictionary (General Usage in the Bible)

The most common Hebrew noun used for “thanks” (תּוֹדָה, todah) derives from the verb “to praise, confess” (יָדָה, yadah).

Yet, blessing God and giving thanks are intimately related.

Perhaps the distinction can be made in this way:

Theological Lexicon of the Old Testament ברך

All cases concern a declaration of God as bārûk on the basis of a concrete demonstration of his might

With this distinction in mind, look at Psalm 103:1-5

Psalm 103:1–5 (HCSB)

My soul, praise Yahweh, and all that is within me, praise His holy name. My soul, praise the Lord, and do not forget all His benefits. He forgives all your sin; He heals all your diseases. He redeems your life from the Pit; He crowns you with faithful love and compassion. He satisfies you with goodness; your youth is renewed like the eagle.

He forgives...

He heals...

He redeems...

He crowns (He honors us)

He satisfies...

He renews...

The rest of Psalm 103 elaborates on these themes, and is filled with descriptions of God’s mighty acts toward His creatures.

One crucial issue in developing an attitude of gratitude in our prayer life is the quality of our relationship with God.

The word translated ‘bless’ is often used in the OT as a word of greeting - as in ‘may you be blessed’ or as friends and family left one another’s company one might pronounce blessing on upcoming travel or events occuring in the near future.

Giving thanks/Blessing God:

Assured of God’s goodness

Confident in trusting God’s words and His way

Words and deeds that glorify/acknowledge and honor God

EXPRESSING GRATITUDE

Though this study is focusing on developing our prayer life, part of the process means we need to expand our understanding of prayer.

Look at this definition of prayer:

Prayer is direct conversation and communion with God, whether vocal or silent, planned or spontaneous, individual or corporate.

Layton Talbert, “Prayer in the Life of the Church,” in Lexham Survey of Theology, ed. Mark Ward et al. (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2018).

Vocal - spoken, sung, recited

Silent - written, thoughts, in our ‘hearts’

Planned or spontaneous -

worship services are often planned in advance, sometimes in the midst of a service changes are made...

Individual or corporate-

What I’m getting at: learning to communicate/converse with God is a learning process, a process that is helped along by learning a vocabulary for prayer -

reciting/singing the prayers of others...

studying the prayers of others

listening to others pray

Ephesians 2:20-21

“Now to Him who is able to do above and beyond all that we ask or think according to the power that works in us— to Him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen.” (Ephesians 3:20–21, HCSB)

Try this exercise on your own:

Make a timeline of the major events of your life:

birth, education, marriage, birth of children, jobs, moves...’

At each event pause and review: for what in this even can I be thankful?

Save this list and review occasionally as a prayer prompt.

One other idea I stumbled across on social media:

Thanksgiving Thursday

Every Thursday make a list of all the things you are thankful for, offer the list as an offering to God!