Devoted to Prayer
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Have you ever asked Him what He likes to hear? Love unexpressed grows cold, and soon it is not love at all but an arrangement. Do you think that maybe praise is the key to moving from knowing about God to knowing Him intimately and being powerful in Him?                     —Sylvia Gunter
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One of the earliest lessons I learned as a believer was the prominent place praise and thanksgiving must occupy in my life. I only wish I practiced them more. It seems that fear, anxiety, and worries dominate my thinking and thus the way I relate to the Lord. Am I alone in this? When these toxic emotions are allowed to rule my spirit, my prayers are reduced to grocery lists of the things I want the Lord to accomplish, and then I am frustrated when he does not hop to it and get them answered. The Lord has been showing me how to have an ongoing dialogue of thanksgiving in my heart as I walk through each day. It is changing the atmosphere in my soul.
The Bible is full of all kinds of prayers. Of course, requests were made and answered in Bible times; but it seems to me that the prayers were far more focused on expressing love and devotion to God, thanksgiving and praise for who he is and what he has done. When I exercise these spiritual disciplines myself, there is softness in my spirit, humility in my requests, and awe in my heart that serve to calm my fears, anxieties, and worries.
 I am so grateful for the way women are portrayed in the Word of God. A hero of mine is Hannah, Samuel’s mother. You’ll find her in 1 Samuel, chapters 1 and 2. Here was a woman with every right to be worried about her closed womb, angry with her husband for taking multiple spouses, and fearful of the other wife’s tirades.  She was shamefully treated by her husband’s second wife, Peninnah, over her inability to have children. Here’s the way the scriptures put it: “Her rival kept provoking her in order to irritate her” (1 Samuel 1:6). I probably would have punched her! But not Hannah—she went to the temple and prayed. She cast her cares on the Lord, and when God gave her the desires of her heart, she spontaneously erupted in a prayer of praise and thanksgiving, found in 1 Samuel 2. You’ll notice not a word was mentioned in the prayer about the long wait for children or about Peninnah. Hannah was caught up by the glorious God who heard and answered her prayers.
I know all of us have our fair share of worries and fears. God wants us to do what Hannah did—pour out our hearts to him (see Philippians 4:6-9 and 1 Peter 5:7). But let’s make a decided effort to spend more time praising and thanking God than we do presenting requests. How do you think this practice will change the atmosphere in your soul?
