Grantitude is the attitude at the heart of Christian faith. It is thanksgiving rather than despair which fuels our ceaseless praying for healing, provision, salvation, revelation and social transformation. Stop thanking and the flames of faith will soon die away. This Thanksgiving season we are therefore celebrating the ways that God reawakens gratitude in our hearts whenever we truly spend time with him.

In prayer we find that the essential happiness in the heart of God begins to defrost the numbness and re-animate the dumbness in our own tired souls. Late one night in a 24-7 Prayer Room in Guildford, England, Pete Greig described this powerful experience of the reawakening of hope:

A Million Minor Miracles

I’m standing at night in this subterranean place of prayer, and perhaps it’s the coffee, or the music, or the Spirit, but the darkness doesn’t seem too strong. I’m praying for miracles in the city where I live – for healings, and salvations, and justice, and revival, and all those usual things I feel like I’m supposed to talk to God about. But tonight, as I do so, I find myself suddenly startled - like a boy blinking at fireworks – bewildered by how many miracles there already are.

It occurs to me that here in my city today the doctors dispensed healing – can you imagine anything more wonderful? Neighbours did favors. Dog-walkers in the park silently admired the symmetry of trees. Jokes were told in care homes. Thousands and thousands of people prayed, or wished, or merely unwittingly wanted what God wanted for a moment or two.

Chocolate cake

Chances are that somewhere today a young man and a young woman began to fall in love (although they don’t yet know it). A teenager picked up trash she had not dropped. A single mother decided, just for once, to buy herself a slice of chocolate cake and to celebrate the moment in long, slow, mouthfuls of happiness. A painter-decorator stepped back from a wall he’d just painted the colour of claret, and maybe at that moment the sunlight broke through the window, and he saw that it was a good piece of work. A man resisted the temptation to click the link he wouldn’t want his wife to see. Maybe he failed yesterday. Maybe he’ll click it tomorrow. But today he overcame. In the hospital perhaps a surgeon pinned a broken arm with immaculate skill. Delicious food was prepared and cooked and served in thousands of homes joyously. A pastor’s words, so carefully crafted, brought a little comfort to grieving relatives. People cried, but a check-out girl smiled at a lonely old lady. People died of course, but babies were also born. From time to time today, I was born too. We all were. A million, minor miracles.

Anything is possible

We do not pray ex nihilo. We pray for more of whatever it is we see. Nothing comes from nothing – certainly not faith like this. Tonight I’m blessing the evidence of miracles; the pre-existing goodness, the presence of Christ already here in these streets, these surgeries, these schools, these art galleries, these pubs, these homes, these wards. Witnessing so many minor miracles I applaud the world.  If all of this is happening all around me already now, what might not happen next? Anything just became possible.

And so I stand here now in this subterranean place of prayer and it seems self-evident that there is more light in the night than darkness in the day. There is goodness breaking through, everywhere I look. And I’m praying for miracles tonight with greater faith than frustration for once. I can see creation rising like the moon above the Fall. Ultimately, almost inevitably, benevolence wins the day quietly. I’m climbing the stairs to my car now, stepping out of the prayer room into the darkness. I’m driving home past houses and perhaps it’s the music on the stereo, or the caffeine, or the Spirit, but the city seems to me to have become the place of prayer.

Pete Greig is a founding champion of the 24-7 movement and Director of Prayer for Holy Trinity Brompton, in London. He and his family live in Guildford, England, where they are actively engaged with establishing a new missional (‘Boiler Room’) community. Pete’s books include 'Red Moon Rising', 'The Vision and The Vow' and 'God on Mute'.

SOURCE: http://www.24-7prayer.com/features/1651