Editorial November 25, 2013 Issue

Pre-gratitude

The Editors

To be grateful for something even before it’s in your view—to be “pre-grateful”—can be quite an inspiring and effective approach to prayer. 

It’s not all that new of an approach, but it certainly is a very good one. By example, Jesus taught people about pre-gratitude and how to express it. When standing in front of his friend Lazarus’ tomb, Jesus gave thanks to God, even though the body of Lazarus was still inside the tomb, wrapped in graveclothes (see John 11:41, 42). Jesus was praying by being grateful for something unseen: that God is the only real presence and, no matter what, God was truly the Life of his friend. What happened next? “And he that was dead came forth, bound hand and foot with graveclothes: and his face was bound about with a napkin. Jesus saith unto them, Loose him, and let him go” (John 11:44).

Jesus was praying by being grateful for something unseen.