Praying Grace

I must never be deceived by the simplicity of eucharisteo and penning His love list. Frogs. Sun. Journal. Naming. Love. Here. It all feels startlingly hallowed and I breathe shallow. I should take my shoes off.

This is the other side where Daniel, man of prayer, lived. You know, change agent Daniel, mover and shaker Daniel, second-to-the-king Daniel, sleeping-in-perfect-peace-in-the-den-of-the-lions Daniel. And Daniel is a man of power prayer, not because he bends the stiff knees and makes petitions of the High Throne three times daily. Rather, his prayers move kings and lion jaws because Daniel “got down on his knees and prayed, giving thanks to his God, just as he had done before” (Daniel 6:10, emphasis added). Three times a day, Daniel prayed thanksgiving for the everyday common, for the God-love spilling forth from the God-heart at the center of all.

I am bell and He is sure wind, and He moves and I am rung and I know it for what it is: The only real prayers are the ones mouthed with thankful lips. Because gratitude ushers us into the other side of prayer, into the heart of the God-love, and all power to change the world resides here in His love. Prayer, to be prayer, to have any power to change anything, must first speak thanks: “In every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God” (Philippians 4:6, emphasis added). “First, I tell you to pray for all people, asking God for what they need and being thankful to him” (1 Timothy 2:1 NCV, emphasis added). Prayer without ceasing is only possible in a life of continual thanks. How did I ever think there was another way to enter into His courts but with thanksgiving?

The gift list is thinking upon His goodness — and this, this pleases Him most! And most profits my own soul, and I am beginning, only beginning, to know it. If clinging to His goodness is the highest form of prayer, then this seeing His goodness with a pen, with a shutter, with a word of thanks, these really are the most sacred acts conceivable. The ones anyone can conceive, anywhere, in the midst of anything.

I am struck, a bell, and I chime long. Daniel is only a man of prayer because he is a man of thanks, and the only way to be a man or woman of prayer is to be a man or woman of thanks. And not sporadic, general thanks, but three times a day eucharisteo.

When I give thanks for the seemingly microscopic, I make a place for God to grow within me. This, this, makes me full, and I “magnify him with thanksgiving” (Psalm 69:30 KJV), and God enters the world. What will a life magnify? The world’s stress cracks, the grubbiness of a day, all that is wholly wrong and terribly busted? Or God?

The list is God’s list, the pulse of His love — the love that thrums on the other side of our prayers. And I see it now for what this really is, this dare to write down one thousand things I love. It really is a dare to name all the ways that God loves me. The true Love Dare. To move into His presence and listen to His love unending and know the grace uncontainable. This is the vault of the miracles. The only thing that can change us, can change the world, is this — His love.

“My soul doth magnify the Lord” (Luke 1:46 KJV).

So might I; yes, and even here.

Lord, You are the Giver infinitely greater than the sum of all gifts and how can I not slow and bow? Bow right now in worship. Kneel throughout the day in gratitude. Slow, wherever I am, in adoration. Could the miracle of becoming a person of prayer begin with just two words: “Thank You”?