Supplication with Thanksgiving

Make us what Thou would have us to be.

~ Frank Houghton, “Thou Who Was Rich Beyond All Splendor”

The Lord’s providence is sometimes inexpressibly sweet.

It involves delightful family, giggles, days off, playing with the dog, pleasant weather, delicious feasting.

And babies.

And sometimes you have to go back to work the next day after a long weekend and it fills you with moderate dread.  And you don’t want to do it, and you kick against the goads, and you ask, Why, God?  Why couldn’t I get enough time to rest?

And then the Spirit gently reminds you that you have prayed to be more like Christ.  And you don’t understand how, but you can, with difficulty, trust that the bumps and ills of this life are part of His good plan to answer that prayer. 

So, Lord, thank you for delight and fun and laughter and feasts.  And thank you that dread and disappointment and frustration are not meaningless.  And thank you that you are, invisibly, mysteriously, but surely, making us what Thou would have us to be.