By James Wilson
My friend explained she had been diagnosed – biopsied and malignant tissue proved it – in late stage thyroid cancer. The docs were planning surgery in ten days and the prognosis was poor. A team gathered around her for prayer – I was privileged to lead – and I found myself giving thanks for the cancer inasmuch as it had alerted us to the need for desperate prayer. We then told it to go in the name of Jesus, its only legitimate function completed.
I emphasize that I “found myself” giving thanks because it was neither natural nor normal under the circumstances. Yet I serve a Lord who gives thanks for all things to His Abba – even the foolishness of His friends – and proceeds as He is directed. When the surgeon opened her neck to extract the thyroid there was no cancer. When the biopsied tissues were re-examined they too had returned to health. What prompted me to pray as I did was the beginning of what I call a Eucharistic heart. It was operating on its own that day – under direction from the Spirit – but choices I made earlier were coming to activation.
The Eucharistic heart – Greek for great thanksgiving – is more than a dynamic image of faith-filled people recognizing the source of all blessing. Whether approaching the Thanksgiving holiday or changing a tire, a Eucharistic heart shapes the worldview of the heart holder. More than that, the Eucharistic worldview literally enables a more comprehensive vision – at once more expansive and incisive – as we begin to embody Richard Foster’s teaching. He wrote that as we come into rapport with God we come progressively to think what He thinks and love what He loves, ignoring the things He ignores. The difference in such a life ranges from the whimsical to the world-shattering.
This heart change is the gift of God; it is something we cannot produce, try though we might. Yet the change does not come about empty of human activity. We have the power and even the necessity of choosing. When we choose what we cannot create we still retain the power to choose to ask God. And ask and ask and ask. What I had already begun to do – and the process will take a lifetime of repentant prayer and action activated by His response to prayer – was to thank Him for things I enjoyed and – less often, but a start is a start – for things I did not enjoy. Saying thanks for things at His prompt launched the occasional unprompted joy of gratitude. And so it goes.
There is nothing passive about seeking a Eucharistic heart. As we pester Him to recreate us in His Eucharistic image He reminds us to thank Him for what we take for granted – love, the functioning of gravity, the beating of our hearts and the day – or part of it – when things actually worked out. He will remind us too – if we go to Him repetitively – to thank Him for things we do not see in a positive light.
I was very (potentially) distressed to have lost all my notes for a week’s teaching I planned in British Columbia recently. I had the handouts on my hard drive but all the little notes and anecdotes I throw in – based on handwritten notes – were lost. I was forced to wing it – depending on my Abba alone – to fill the gaps. I gave thanks as I left home – grudgingly, but open to the Spirit in a way I would not be without giving thanks – and they are still talking about the teaching I gave without my notes on which to fall back. Did I go in directions I have never been before? I did. Did I find my old notes the moment I returned home? I did. Does the Lord have a sense of humor that becomes visible the moment we permit our eyes to open past our own agenda? He does.
A Eucharistic heart is not of human construction – we are too self-centered. If we are willing to long and pray for it – to become transformed in character rather than circumstances – we will find our circumstances looking very different over time. We will find ourselves content at the same time we respond to circumstances with greater impact – as when Paul was imprisoned first in Philippi and later in Rome. He was released from the former after baptizing his jailer and brought Christ to the imperial household in the latter. He did “greater things than these” (John 14:12-14) through the lens of giving-thanks-first. It is worth depending on God; it is worth much prayer.
James A. Wilson is the author of Living As Ambassadors of Relationships, The Holy Spirit and the End Times, and Kingdom in Pursuit – available at local bookstores or by e-mailing him at praynorthstate@gmail.com
