Prayer with Thanksgiving Produces Peace

God, help me to get along with my in-laws this week.  Lord, allow me to give up control of the remote this year.  Lord, if only they would do the smoked ham that I love rather than the sweet, pineapple ham that I hate.

Well, some of these are worthy prayers and I do like a good smoked ham over a sweet, honey ham, but this is not the peace producing prayer that we are talking about here.

In Stories for the Heart, Alice Gray writes the following:

“Matthew Henry is a well known Bible commentator.  One day he was robbed and that evening made the following entry in his diary:  Let me be thanful- first because I was never robbed before; second, because althought they took my wallet they did not take my life; third, because although they took my all, it was not much; and fourth, because it was I who was robbed, not I who robbed.”

It is this simple diary entry that helps us to understand the magnitude of how we should pray with a thankful heart to our worthy God who gives abuntantly and gives us opportunities to seek his goodness dispite the circumstances.  “That I was never robbed before”…Praying for the times that God protects us or saves us from harm that we never see. “Becuase it was I who was robbed, not I who robbed”…Praying that outside of grace in my life, that I could be the one taking from others as a means to fullfill my own needs.   And that He would show me that when I do seek to fulfill my own needs that He would quickly bring me to my knees (James 5:16).

What is your honest prayer of thankgiving that can produce peace where you are spending Thanksgiving or any other place that may need it?