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======The World of Prayer V: Thankfulness.======
Saturday, July 11, 2009.
A world of prayer - for one week we want to focus on prayer. Today
we come to "prayer of thankfulness".
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Where do the things come from which we use every day? Of course usually
we work. We get paid for our work, and then we buy what we need from
the money we earn for our work. That provides us with housing, with
garment, with food and something to drink. So often we think that we
earned what we have. We believe that what we have is our award for the
hard work we do. But is that really reality? Is this a good view into
the facts?
We all have a human body which is absolutely fantastic. We all grow up
as babies and children without working. We are fed and nurtured by
parents and further people around us. Then we attend school, we learn
a lot, we are educated and equipped with various capabilities. Most
of them we do not earn. Yes, we need to put effort into learning. But
the effort is more the last 10% of what is needed to enable us to
learn. We are equipped with a flexible mind, with the natural ability
to pick up things, to learn to walk, to learn language, to learn
to perform various complex tasks.
Let us talk about work again. We carry out our work in a particular
social environment. This environment is much more important for the
effects of our work than we believe. There are millions of people on
this planet who work hard as well, but they do not get much out of
it. It is taken away by inefficient and corrupt social systems. It is
destroyed by draughts and natural catastrophes. We cannot control
the outcome of our work. The success is given to us, or it is not
given to us. Many things in our life are beyond our possibilities of
control.
We should be thankful for everything we have. Thankfulness is one of the
key roads to realism. Thankfulness acknowledges that all we have is
given to us, we can put some work into things, but we cannot really earn
anything. Thankfulness is one of the fruits of the holy spirit. It shows
deeper insight into the world, into reality. When we realize that God
has created everything, that he has made a world in which we are in
principle given all we need, then we start to become thankful. Of course,
the world has many problems. It is not the world God wanted, it is
not the Garden of Eden any more. It is a tough world, with wars and
fights, with struggle on various levels. But still, it has kept some
spirit of its origin and its future will be a future where God is taking
back what was his from the beginning.
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Every day we say prayers of thankfulness in our family, with our children.
We thank God for the beds we have, that we can lay down and sleep in peace.
We thank him for the food we have, for the apple juice and water. We thank
God for the roof, that we are dry and warm in our house. We thank him that
we have schools, that we can learn to read, to explore the adventure of
mankind, culture and people here and everywhere. We thank him for the
friends we have, for our family, we thank him for parents and many people
around us which are a great gift and blessing to us. There are so many things
we are thankful about. We thank God that we got to know him, that he is
so amazing, patient with us, full of grace and living a humility which is
motivating every day again. He is really great, and there is a flow of
light coming from his throne into our lives which is too fantastic to
comprehend or to describe. What else can we say than one word: thanks, thanks!
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