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DAY 7

PRAYER OF ADORATION

“Know therefore that the LORD your God is God; he is the faithful God, keeping his covenant of love to a thousand generations of those who love him and keep his commandments.” (Deuteronomy 7:9 NIV)

My soul glorifies the Lord / and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, / for he has been mindful / of the humble state of his servant. (Luke 1:46-48 NIV)

Richard Foster, in his excellent book Prayer: Finding the Heart’s True Home, explores twenty-one different types of prayer, from “Simple Prayer” to “Radical Prayer.” He writes: “Real prayer comes not from gritting our teeth but from falling in love.”¹

Prayer can easily degenerate into an obligation, a duty. It becomes much more about gritted teeth than any feelings of being swept away with passion for God. For others, guilt taints prayer—we’re sure we do it wrong, or not enough.

Prayer is not just speaking to God but also listening to him. So often, we pray in a flippant and hurried manner, giving only partial attention. Or it becomes our last resort, tried only when we have exhausted every effort on our own to resolve whatever issue we face. We tell people we will pray for them when we know we won’t, or we pray boring prayers out of guilt or duty. If our rambling, inattentive prayers bore even us, how offensive must they be in the divine ear?

What is it like to spend time with someone who remains with you only because of obligation or duty? You feel awkward, uncomfortable—certainly not loved. Imagine God being on the receiving end of such attention. He is not interested in having us mark time—certainly if he is powerful enough to answer prayers, then he sees through our pretense. He is not a boss making sure we put in some “face time” with him, but rather a lover who longs to simply be enjoyed.

In prayer, we can experience communication with God. Such truth should astonish us. We speak and he hears us! He desires to listen. Beyond this incredible communication, prayer can go deeper, into communion with God—a comforting presence that we can carry with us no matter where we are.

C. S. Lewis notes that simply asking for what we need is only a fraction of the whole of prayer. “Prayer in the sense of petition, asking for things, is a small part of it; confession and penitence are its threshold, adoration its sanctuary, the presence and vision and enjoyment of God its bread and wine. In it God shows Himself to us.”²

A great way to begin a time of prayer is by simply adoring God, telling him why we enjoy him.

Prayer of adoration frames love and gratitude with words. This indeed takes discipline—overcoming the awkwardness of expressing feelings. Finding the words to tell God, “This is what is true of you, and why you are worthy of my respect and reverence” is not always easy.

And yet, adoration is within our hearts—placed there by God himself. Foster writes: “Adoration is the spontaneous yearning of the heart to worship, honor, magnify and bless God.”³ Scripture invites us to adore God: “Glorify the LORD with me; / let us exalt his name together” (Psalm 34:3 NIV).

To name the goodness of God, his specific character traits that we adore, to shape those yearnings into specific thoughts, takes effort. As a result, we often avoid this type of prayer. Instead, we begin our prayers rudely, like a person who says, “Enough about you! Let’s talk about me!”

If our prayer life seems stale or routine, perhaps it suffers from egocentricity that only adoration can cure.

Philip Yancey notes:

Why praise, then? … No message comes through more forcefully in the Bible than that the human species matters profoundly to God. God created the world with humanity in mind, set us at its center, continued to love us despite our failings, and even sent the Son on a rescue mission. And our response to all these gifts has an actual and deep effect on God… . We need not invent a compliment to make God feel good, rather we need only give credit where credit is due.”⁴

Adoration is nearly the opposite of supplication, of course, but it is also subtly different from thanksgiving. It is focused not on thanking God for specific favors (a helpful but distinct discipline), but rather, on appreciating him for who he is. Thanksgiving acknowledges what God has done for me; adoration names who he is apart from me. Begin by simply naming the attributes of God that you appreciate: his kindness, his gentleness, his wisdom.

Adoration carries us to an unexpected place—in recognizing the worthiness of God, we become aware of how valued we are, that we should be called “children of God” (see 1 John 3:1; Galatians 3:26). When we pray prayers of love, that love flows not only toward God but also rebounds back from him to our eager, childlike hearts.

PRESENCE PRACTICE

Today, spend some time praying prayers of praise and adoration. Tell God how much you love him, and you will feel that love reflected back to you, multiplied.

When we experience true communion with God, spending quiet moments in his presence, we often find ourselves welling up with feelings of love.

God is all-knowing, all-powerful, loving, merciful, and more. What specific attributes have you seen lately? Which ones do you need to remind yourself of because you need that particular strength of God to manifest itself in a particular situation?

The Psalms provide an excellent primer on all types of prayer, but particularly adoration. If you feel uncertain about how to begin the practice of adoration, use a psalm as your text. For example, try using Psalm 8 as the text for your prayer:

LORD, our Lord,

how majestic is your name in all the earth!

You have set your glory

in the heavens.

Through the praise of children and infants

you have established a stronghold against your enemies,

to silence the foe and the avenger.

When I consider your heavens,

the work of your fingers,

the moon and the stars,

which you have set in place,

what is mankind that you are mindful of them,

human beings that you care for them? (Psalm 8:1-4 NIV)

Allow these words to be a springboard from which you leap into adoring God further, naming all that you admire and appreciate about him.

Check here when you have completed today’s Presence Practice.