Jump Start # 482 

 Colossians 4:2 Devote yourselves to prayer, keeping alert in it with an attitude of thanksgiving

  This is a great passage! Devote yourselves to prayer is what Paul says. Stay with it. Be committed to prayer. Use prayer. Make prayer a regular habit with you. The apostle links two other great thoughts to prayer—first, keeping alert in it. I think we’d say today, “stay focused.” Prayer is powerful, handle with care. There are so many things to pray for and about, that a person ought to keep alert. The other aspect to all of this is to do this with an “attitude of thanksgiving.”

  Right there Paul tells us that thankfulness is an attitude. It’s not about stuff. The guy with the most stuff will be the most thankful—not at all. It is an attitude that one walks with in life. One chooses to be thankful or one chooses not to be, usually by not thinking about it at all. The thankful attitude. An attitude of gratitude.

  We know how attitude works—it’s like food coloring, it has a way of getting into something and coloring it all. That’s the way attitudes work. Our attitude affects how we see other people, it affects our relationship with God, how we approach work, our we deal with our failures—attitude colors our life.

  Someone who is sour and grumpy and miserable all the time has a bad attitude. He may not understand how things are, but he’s not much joy to be around. Others can walk through one mess after another but maintain an incredible attitude. Why is it that way? Because we do not choose what happens to us, but we do choose how it will affect us. Pain is inevitable, but misery is optional, my good friend Barbara Johnson, used to write in her books. How true this is.

  An attitude of thanksgiving. Choosing to be thankful—first, in our prayers. It’s one thing to always be asking God for help or forgiveness, we sure need that, but it’s something else to pray with an attitude of thanksgiving. God is so good to us. I wonder how many times you have prayed to God already in your life? Have you thought about that? I wonder how many times God has been there for you in your life? How many times do you think He has forgiven you? A dozen? a thousand? A million times? You’re alive today—that’s reason to be thankful. If you’re reading this, you have a computer and electricity, and eyes and a mind to just name a few things.

  Have you noticed how easy folks complain? I guess I’m complaining about the complainers! One person starts in and soon everyone jumps on his band wagon. The weather stinks…the government is dumb…the Colts are hopeless…woe is me and you’ll find others singing that same song. It’s easy to complain. Anyone can do that. It’s harder to keep that attitude of thanksgiving, that attitude of gratitude.

  Keeping an attitude of thanksgiving tends to make you see things brighter and better. It finds hope and more than anything else, it puts confidence and trust in God. God is on the throne, always has been. No matter how dark the skies get, nor how bad things are, God is still in charge. That alone is a major reason to be thankful! Can you imagine what the day would be like if God decided to step out of the throne for a while? Or worse, He put someone like me in His place? Gracious—talk about a mess. He doesn’t do that. No king, no apostle, no prophet, no preacher, no politician sits on that throne—only God. Nothing is greater than God. Jesus proved that. Sickness? He cured it. Demons? He cast them out. Death? He talked to the dead and they were resurrected. Storms? He stopped them immediately. More people than food? Not a problem for Jesus. Over and over He showed that God can do all things.

  This is the God that loves you so much and wants you to pray to Him. This is the God that has been patient with you, working with you and working through you. This is the God that can’t wait until you come to His home, Heaven.

  An attitude of thanksgiving. It starts in our prayers but it carries over in our conversations and our outlook on life. Sometimes a person just needs an attitude adjustment—a little course correction, especially in the area of thankfulness. We tend to forget to count those blessings. Maybe it’s not so much forgetting as it is not sure where to start, there are so many!

  It all starts with a simple, “Thank you, Lord!”

Roger