Sometimes, praise is all we have

As a needy species, we humans tend to want.
Like, WANT, y'know?

We want food on our plates and a roof over our heads.
We want a good television and a car that we can depend on.
We want the best of health for our loved ones. And ourselves.
We want good weather, however we happen to DEFINE "good weather" at that moment.
We want Becky in the cubicle or desk across the way to be interested in us.
We want that lottery ticket to hit every number.
We want, we want, we want.

But God is not a genie in a bottle.

We've talked about this before. God says "ask and you shall receive"...as long as what you're asking for aligns with His thoughts for your life! At that point, your faith will probably have aligned with His wishes for you and your life anyway.

What we most often forget, to our great detriment, is that Christ taught us how to pray, and the element that is far more important than the requests in prayer, are the PRAISES in our prayers.

It's not that God is vain and needs our praise to bolster His "self-esteem". No, we praise God for OUR sake. We praise Him so that we realize what our place in the grand scheme of things really is: infinitesimal. We are simply His clay, given life for the sole purpose of glorifying Him through our lives on this planet. He created man from dust, and to dust we will return - that is, unless through the completely unmerited grace only God can grant, we are allowed to live eternally in Heaven with Bim and (ideally) loved ones who were saved as well, equally unmeritoriously.

Unless you stop and remember that detail, your eternal life is doomed.

How did our Savior suggest we pray? Our Father, Who Art in Heaven; Hallowed be Thy Name. Thy kingdom come, Thy Will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Then and ONLY then should we continue on to the relatively mundane part of the prayer: our requests. Too often the priority of these two categories are reversed, and then we wonder why our requests fell by the wayside.

What can we praise the Lord Infinite for? Well, infinitely speaking, everything.

Thank Him for the sunshine, thank Him for the rain and snow. Thank Him for another day He's allowed you to live at all, let alone in the wonderful place you must be living if you have Internet and can read this message. Thank Him for the food on your table, the gas in your tank, and the roof over your head. Thank Him for the trees and bushes and all the plant life that allows us to breathe in this fragile planet. Thank Him for the animal life that allows us to domesticate pets and raise food and labor and have hunting be available in our country.

Thank Him for the people in your life. For the colleagues you work with and the ones throughout your workplace. For the people in your church and the people you work out with. For the people who make up that hodge-podge of a family of yours - especially the spouse you committed your life to and the children the two of you created.

Thank Him, more than anything, for His Son, Without the sacrifice Christ made - the one that ONLY He could have made, because anyone else would have lived too imperfect a life to be a viable payment - we would be doomed to an eternity of hell.

Praise Him morning, noon, and night. Praise Him at the stop sign and the traffic light.
Praise Him when the rent is due. Praise Him when you get your paycheck, too.
Praise Him when you're feeling bad. Praise Him is when you're feeling mad.
Praise Him when your life is great. Praise Him when you must leave it to fate.
For better or worse, in sickness and in health, for richer or poorer, praise the Lord God Almighty at all times for your very existence.