I once had the pleasure of meeting and getting to know Neta Jackson, the author along with her husband Dave of many historical fiction books that we used when we were home schooling (The Hero Tales series is amazing). But she also wrote the Yada Yada Prayer Group novel series about an unlikely group of women that come together to pray for each other. Although I’d read almost everything else she’d written, I hadn’t read this series until recently. In it, one of the characters is careful to give God praise in advance of the answer. I know to do this, but I’m not as intentional as I need to be. It was a great reminder and came at just the right time.
In this season of Thanksgiving, when our
hearts are more turned to the Lord with gratitude, we make lists of the things for
which we are thankful, which often include what we have.
Not often do we include what we don’t have.
I’ve shared this quote from Ann Voskamp
before, “Eucharisteo (Greek word for thanksgiving) always, always precedes the
miracle. And who doesn’t need a miracle like that every day?”
Let’s all raise our hands.
Now, some might draw back from doing this
thinking they’re stepping into a name it and claim it theology. But the Bible includes many examples of thanksgiving before the miracle.
Before the feeding of the 4,000 in Matthew
15, the disciples wondered, “Where could we get enough bread in this remote
place to feed such a crowd?” They only had seven loaves of bread and a few
small fish. But Jesus had the crowd sit, and “He took the seven loaves and the
fish, and when he had given thanks, he broke them and gave them to the
disciples, and they in turn to the people.”
The miracle was, “They all ate and were
satisfied. Afterward the disciples picked up seven basketfuls of broken pieces
that were left over.”
I always marvel they only had seven loaves
to begin with, and afterward they gathered seven baskets of broken pieces—even bread
to spare.
Thanksgiving preceded the miracle.
We may have our own seven loaves and a few
fish situations where there seems no possible answer—only an impossible answer. In the
natural, we do not tend toward thanksgiving in that circumstance, but when we
turn our hearts toward the Lord giving thanks and praise, we are changed, and
whether or not God does what we desire at the onset, we have a greater sense of
His presence. Doing this puts us in a different place of sharing in his joy
despite what may be happening.
So, in this season of Thanksgiving, and
really every day, let’s be grateful for what we have and for what we don’t have
as well.
Thanks, Neta, for the reminder. I’m on
book two. Five more to go. Yay!! Lots of Yada Yada in my future.
(The picture of the gulf fritillary above was taken in a local nursery on November 10. I don't know how it got so far north, but what a wonder to see it that time of year. Felt like a miracle to me.)