Invite Vigilant Gratitude to Wake Up Your Prayer Life

One of the first indicators that life is moving too fast here on the hill is that we start misplacing things: keys, important papers, the lid to my favorite travel mug… Anyone else? It’s almost as if we stop seeing and paying attention, a dangerous symptom of life on autopilot, and we were never designed to live that way.

As we come careening into Thanksgiving season, I want to live in gratitude, but that’s just not going to happen if I don’t slow down and pay attention to my life. Notice the connection between vigilance and gratitude here:

"Continue steadfastly in prayer, being watchful in it with thanksgiving.” (Colossians 4:2 ESV)

According to John Piper, a more literal translation of this verse would render it, “Being watchful in it BY thanksgiving.” Gratitude is the key to paying attention!

Certainly, I am blessed with innumerable gifts, straight from the hand of God, and my right response to this is deep and abiding gratitude. The Message version helps me to connect the dots between prayer and a vigilant thanksgiving mindset:

“Pray diligently. Stay alert, with your eyes wide open in gratitude.“

A number of Christian writers recommend organizing our prayer lives in concentric circles, praying first for those closest to us and then moving in ever-widening circles through close friends and church family, neighbors, acquaintances, state and national leaders, and the world. I’ve started using those concentric circles to guide me into gratitude. For example:

“Thank you, Lord, for my good and patient husband, for the way you have provided for us in our cozy home, for healthy bodies and minds, for work to do and the strength to accomplish it. Thank you for our four sons…”

With a thanksgiving mindset, even our prayer requests can become occasions for offering gratitude to God: “Thank you, God, that our sons have had the opportunity to attend college, that they can glorify you in their work ethic and their good reputation. Help them today as they…”

With so much to be thankful for, maybe an organizing system for our brains is just the thing we need to help us in slowing down and paying attention with our “eyes wide open in gratitude.”

Will you join me in praying concentric circles of gratitude in these days leading up to Thanksgiving? May it have the effect of waking up your prayer life and drawing you closer to God in the process!