Carol McClain

Prayer’s Priority: Worship

By Carol McClain

I don’t know about you, but somewhere during the many years I’ve been a Christian, I’ve taught myself God is a piggy bank that gives interest.

Insert prayer. Wait a day or two, and pop out more than I put in.

 

 

Then things don’t go according to plan. I don’t become a best-selling author (Check out my book page. Read a novel or all of them. You know I should be number one on the NY Times best seller list). Then, I don’t even sell a book at a craft fair.  The low air pressure in my car tires turn out to be a need for not one, or two, but every single tire on my car. Or I gain five pounds instead of losing the one I prayed to lose.

What gives? I ask myself, “What did I do wrong?”

Or worse, “Why doesn’t God hear my prayer?”

I don’t always see how God answers my prayers, nor do I understand His apparent denial of my requests. What I have missed through the years of prayer and what I know now is:

 

The priority of prayer is worship

1. The Lord’s Prayer. When the disciples asked Jesus how to pray, He gave them a pattern. The Lord’s Prayer (Matt. 6: 9-13, and Luke 11:1-4) starts out, “Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name.”  The first item in the Lord’s Prayer pattern is worship. Hallowed means: holy, sanctified, sacred. It starts with worship.
2. The psalms. These beautiful songs show us the pattern of prayer. They focus on God and worship. Of course, the psalmists often petition and receive answers to their requests, but always, the psalms return to praise.
3. We are created for God not the other way around. One example of this fact comes from Isaiah 43:7. “(E)veryone who is called by my name, whom I created for my glory, whom I formed and made.” We were created for His good pleasure. We don’t tie God around our little finger.

Oh, our God is beneficent. Like a husband who responds to our overture of affection, He rains blessings on us. He answers in love, and in His own timing.

However, we need to remember, our first priority must be Him.

The rest is, as they say, gravy–biscuits and gravy if you come from the South.

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