“Worship the Lord with gladness. Come before him, singing with joy. Acknowledge that the Lord is God! He made us, and we are his. We are his people, the sheep of his pasture. Enter his gates with thanksgiving; go into his courts with praise. Give thanks to him and praise his name.”
Psalms 100:2-4
Too often, I find myself only going to God when times are hard or when I need to see him work in a specific way. The times when I need to see him move right here, right now. And as the graceful and loving Father that he is, he oftentimes does. Then I wonder, what’s next?
We often seem to move onto the next issue. In our world and especially in NYC, we're always looking ahead to what’s next. A perfect example of this is in my daily life. For context, I'm an actor, and after my last show ended, we took our bows and went to talk to the audience and friends. I found that there was a common question asked, “So what’s next?” I thought of this when I sat down to write: Why is it that immediately after an experience, a successful show, an answer to prayer, we're quick to ask, “Okay, so what’s next?”
How can we reframe that question? Reframe our thinking from what can God give me to what can I offer back? Because the truth is all God asks in return from us is to praise him and celebrate what he did. It seems simple because it is. The part that I often forget is that we should do it gladly, joyfully, fully. I hope that we can reframe our thinking from "here’s a list of needs" to instead just have an outpouring of joy and gladness thanking him as he asked us to, believing that he will do it as we’ve seen him do time and time again.
Carter Williams
Dear God, please allow a spirit of gratitude and joy fill this room. Let my spirit be overwhelmed with thanks for you. Without you there would be no breath in my lungs so I thank you, Lord. I thank you for choosing me and calling me yours. I adore you, and I pray to walk through my day and life with the freedom to be joyful, freedom to be glad and thankful to be a light for you. To point people to you and bring them home. I love you and I thank you, Amen.
