Prayer is one of
the main ways we communicate with the Lord. In class, we discussed the Lord’s
Prayer and it’s requests, shown in “Give us this day our daily bread” for
example. It took me a long time before I prayed more in gratitude and less in
request. For some reason our faith seems to shine brighter when we need
something versus when we are thanking Him for something. With that being said,
page 14 opened my eyes to the concept of prayer in praise, not just in
thankfulness: “We can distinguish praise from thanksgiving as follows: to give
thanks is to praise God for the good things I have received from God, while to
praise is to thank God for who He is.” Prayer is meant for us to decenter
ourselves and to open ourselves up freely to the Lord. When we are in the best
version of prayer, it consists “in the beauty of God and rejoicing that He has
such beauty” (p. 14). This is important because prayer must also aim to simply
marvel at God and His beauty (known as disinterested delight). This excerpt
really put into perspective the amount of time we spend praying for praise,
thankfulness, or request. We need to pray more in praise of God for who He is, versus
praying in all He has done or will do.
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