Invitation to a Journey: A Road Map for Spiritual Formation (Transforming Resources)

by M. Robert Mulholland

Having established the posture of the disciple’s heart toward God in the midst of life’s disruptions, Paul speaks of our petitions. These requests, however, are now set within a different frame of reference. If we have not first entered into the posture of prayer and supplication, our requests tend to be very narrowly focused on our own agenda and have their center in our self-referenced matrix of life. The posture of prayer and supplication, however, places us and our situations into the deeper matrix of God’s presence and purpose. While still shaped by our perception of the situation, our requests begin to become the bridge between our own desires and the purposes of God. When this happens, our requests become the practice of forbearance. We begin to place the situations of our lives into the deeper matrix of God’s presence and purpose and find that we can release our tenuous control and fragile ordering of life to God. Paul describes the inner current of forbearance when he indicates that our requests are to be made with thanksgiving. This is not a magical formula that guarantees God’s hearing and response. It is not a way of manipulating God to solve the problem in our way. Thanksgiving is the deep inner posture of joyful release of our life and being to God in absolute trust, without demands, without conditions, without reservations. If Paul’s call to forbearance is actualized by our requests in a posture of prayer and supplication, thanksgiving fulfills his call to r...