26 Jesus answered, “Truly I tell you, you are looking for me, not because you saw[a] the signs, but because you ate the loaves and were filled. 27 Don’t work for the food that perishes but for the food that lasts for eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you, because God the Father has set his seal of approval on him.” (John 6:26-27 CSB)
Our days can be filled with the ebb and flow of what people do for us and what we do for them. In fact all of life, in one way or another, is a dance between give and take.
In our scripture today, Jesus had just the day before fed the multitude. Today they had tracked him down, not looking for the Bread of Life but looking for another meal.
This is why it is so important in our prayer life to balance our thank you’s with our request. We are not coming before God to get our wishes granted. We are coming before Him in praise and thankfulness for what he has already done, even in a future sense.
As such, it is better for us to pray as if the prayer is fulfilled, giving thanks for the fact that we know God will answer our prayers even if we do not know specifically how. This way of praying, which I have to remember to foster in myself continually, flips our prayer life around. We are no longer asking for prayers to be fulfilled, we are thanking God for how he is working in our lives.
This lends itself too to allowing us to expect the best in others first before we make a judgement on what they may or may not do.
