Let’s go from Entreaty to Thanksgiving
In the midst of a crisis (like this coronavirus crisis we are working through!) is a great time to show that we are thankful to God for all things. “Those things that are and those things that are not” (Divine Liturgy).
The will of God is two-fold. It is both “the will of God according to His wishes” and “the will of God according to what He allows”. God wants good things for us, but at the same time “allows” certain things to take place that appear as trials and tribulations that we may draw closer to Him – the only thing that really has significance.
So let us turn our prayer into thanksgiving. Thanks for His love for us, thanks for “the things that are not”.
“Prayer changes from entreaty to thanksgiving, and meditation on the divine truths of faith fills the heart with a sense of jubilation and unimpeachable hope. This hope is a foretaste of future blessings, of which the soul even now receives direct experience, and so it comes to know in part the surpassing richness of God’s bounty, in accordance with the Psalmist’s words, ‘Taste and know that the Lord is bountiful’ (Ps. 34:8). For He is the jubilation of the righteous, the joy of the upright, the gladness of the humble, and the solace of those who grieve because of Him.”
–St. Gregory Palamas
