1 Samuel 4:17-18 The man who brought the news replied, “Israel fled before the Philistines, and the army has suffered heavy losses. Also, your two sons, Hophni and Phinehas, are dead, and the ark of God has been captured.” When he mentioned the ark of God, Eli fell backward off his chair by the side of the gate. His neck was broken and he died, for he was an old man, and he was heavy. He had led Israel forty years.
A story told about a lady who was visiting another sister in the church at her home one beautiful day. The phone rang, and she said, “I’ll let it go to voicemail, it’s my daughter, and the only time she calls is when she needs something.”
There is a sad fact of life, and that is that some people treat God just like they treat their parents, and that is calling only when they need something. How do you think God feels when the only time we go to His throne through prayer is when we are asking Him for something? This verse of scripture is not advocating thanking God for everything; it is a directive to give God thanks, in everything. For example, we would not thank God because our husband or wife is sick; we would give Him thanks for an opportunity to place our faith and trust in Him.
Sometimes we find ourselves in a situation where we start to blame God, “why hasn’t He heard my prayers”? or maybe “why hasn’t He done something about it”? This same thing happened to Israel's children; they went to God only when they thought they could not handle the problems on their own. When they were defeated by their enemies, when the enemy captured the Ark of the Covenant, they wondered why God did not care about their situation. They had departed from God and His ways. They were using the house of God for their pleasure instead of a meeting place with their Creator. They had not called on God for some time, and now when they needed Him, He chose not to intervene when they lost this great battle. Of course, he did later intercede, and the Ark of the Covenant was returned to the Children of Israel.
Let us not find ourselves in this predicament by only visiting God when we need or want something. Let us go to Him in prayer every day of our lives. Let us praise him and thank Him for all that we have in Life. All that we have or ever will have, all that we are or ever will be, is because of Him. There is a line in the old gospel song “Calvary’s the Reason Why” that says, “Sometimes I just want to thank you without asking you for a thing.”
Some adhere to the theory that we should enter God’s presence with fear and trembling, however, worship, thanksgiving, and praise is how the psalmist tells us to “Enter His Gates” (Psalm 100:4). Let us go to God daily in prayers of thanksgiving and praise, not just when we want or need something from Him.
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