Watchfulness and thankfulness

“Devote yourselves to prayer, being watchful and thankful.” Colossians 4:2

Has something ever happened that you immediately know is from God? It seems out of the blue…like He just knew what you needed without you even telling Him. On the other hand, sometimes a thing will happen in my life, and I will shrug my shoulders and pocket the blessing without thinking about Who was behind it. When I swerve to avoid a car accident, I breathe a sigh of relief, thinking of the inevitability of statistics, being glad it wasn’t my turn to fill the insurance tables.

My prayers are as careless as my inventory of blessings. I pray, meaning it at the moment, and forgetting it the next. The answer comes, but I have not been watchful, and I think to myself, “Why wasn’t I just more patient? If I had known this was going to happen a week ago, I could have just waited without worrying.”

What I don’t take into account is that my prayers and the prayers of others are having an impact on those blessings. If I hadn’t prayed, would God have moved?

I wonder, how much glory has God received for those forgotten answers? My heart is sad for the multitude of loving gestures from my Father that have gone unthanked. How many thank you’s have been stolen away by my unrealized fatalism? Still more have been swiped by a subtle sense of entitlement to all that is good.

But regret is not where God wants us to live. Little children do not always thank their parents for a trip to McDonald’s, a Buzz Lightyear blanket or a “one more kiss” good-night. They expect it. Only with maturity do they grow to appreciate the many sleepless nights or ER runs endured by their parents with seemingly endless patience.

Up until now in my life, I have not been watchful, and as a result, not been as thankful to my God as I want to be in the future. I was at a point where I did not even see that I needed to be aware of the answers to prayer all around me. I am in a process. I am growing up. I will try again tomorrow, and reflect on my life in a new light.

God, thank you for your eternal provision. Thank you that you remember my prayers, even when I do not remember I mumbled them in the busyness of my life. Teach me to be watchful. Please know how grateful I am for the blessings that I see and especially for the ones I cannot.

Amen.