Our Rich Treasury of People

             

            For a very long time, when I have been leading workshops on prayer, I have suggested that examining and praying along with the prayers in the New Testament Epistles can stretch our prayers into unexplored territory. Now in “retirement,” I have worked them into my daily prayer rhythm. Yes indeed, I am being stretched, especially in the direction of gratitude.

Close to the beginning of almost every one of these prayers is effusive thanks for people. Sometimes people who have been ministry partners. Sometimes people who have invested themselves in the Church and her mission. Sometimes people who were personally known and some known only by reputation. I am caught up in the warmth of affection expressed in 1 Thessalonians 2:8 which continues through the chapter. “So deeply do we care for you that we are determined to share with you not only the gospel of God but also our own selves, because you have become very dear to us.” This is characteristic of the thanks for people that permeates the prayers of the New Testament Epistles.

In this season of my life, as I pray each of those prayers, I am prompted to remember those with whom I have served with great gratitude. I am particularly thankful those who have shaped me through the years. I am thankful for those with whom I shared partnership in ministry. I am thankful for those for whom I was privileged to bring some touch of Christ’s love and presence. And, yes, I have been prompted to give thanks for those whom I found annoying or troubling or confrontational at the time. Each day’s parade seems altogether too fragmentary a sample of those for whom I am indeed thankful, but by coming back to it every day, I am reminded of more and more folk in our great treasury of people.

This rhythm of thanksgiving from the prayers of the New Testament Epistles has given me an expansive vision of the vast treasury of people my wife, family, and I have been enriched to receive. Looking back on now almost 50 years of marriage, recalling the places we have lived and served, it is not the houses, cars, clothes, travels, or even experiences or accomplishsment for which we give the greatest thanks. We are supremely grateful for this great cloud of people who have so lavishly enriched us. Remembering them evokes joyful thanks.

As her Alzheimer’s opens ever larger holes and gaps in my wife’s memory, the wonder and warmth of the people we feel God has given us over these years not only persists but grows. Often something happens that arouses warm emotions from even a distant past relationship. By talking it through together, we are often able to piece together names, locations, events, family connections, congregations in ways that affirm the gifts these folk still are to us. The gifts are not limited by activities or benefits, but are expansive gratitude for the people themselves. To be sure, the day may well come that she will not be able to reconstruct these details. They are getting more challenging for me as well. But the relationships with these folk will continue to be our prayer of thanksgiving for our great treasury of relationships.

Someone else might come up with a different inventory of the prayers of the New Testament Epistles, but these are what I use. Romans 1:8-10; 15:5-6,13; 1 Corinthians 1:3-9; 2 Corinthians 13:7-10; Ephesians 1:15-23; 3:14-21; Philippians 1:2-5, 9-11; Colossians 1:2-12; 4:2-4; 1 Thessalonians 1:2-5; 3:10-13; 2 Thessalonians 1:2-4, 11-12; 3:1-2, 5; 2 Timothy 1:3-4, 16-18; Philemon 1:4-7.