A Prayer for Overflowing with Thankfulness

by Scotty Smith

     So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live your lives in him, rooted and built up in him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness. Col. 2:6-7 

     Dear Lord Jesus, I want to be a man who gives you the quality and quantity of thanks of which you are so absolutely worthy. Not like a slow drip, a babbling brook, or a meandering stream, but like a geyser—a gospel geyser—spontaneously erupting with gratitude any and every moment. I want to overflow with thankfulness, to the praise of your glory and grace!

     I have every reason to be like the healed Samaritan leper, who with a stunned heart and irrepressible gratitude returned to give you heartfelt thanks (Luke 17:11-17). I return today, and I want to return every day, to express my profound thankfulness.

     From the first nanosecond I was given faith to receive you as Savior and Lord, I was fully and firmly rooted in your righteousness and love. Now, completely forgiven, I have no other righteousness than yours. Just as I cannot add one iota to your righteousness, I can never, ever be separated from your love, and your love, alone, is better than life. You have already set me free from the penalty of sin, you are continually setting me free from the power of sin, and one day you will set me free from the very presence of sin.

     Jesus, I want to live in you—reflecting upon your glory with an unveiled face and marinating in the riches of your unfailing grace. I want to be built up in you, maturing by the same grace that saved me, being liberated for the race that you’ve set before me. I want to be strengthened in you, forgiving others as you have forgiven me; forbearing with others as you forbear with me; accepting others as you accept me—loving as your beloved.

     Lord Jesus, how I would love to be already done with all of my carping and droning, all whining and complaining, all boohoo-ing and Eeyore-ing, and with every other expression of ingratitude. But until that Day, rise up in me this day, and set my heart, voice, hands and feet free to love you and serve those around me. Oh, Fountain of Grace, Oh, Artesian Spring of Life, set me free. So very Amen I pray, in your glorious and grace-filled name.