Recently we’ve been talking about prayer. It’s a conversation we have regularly especially since we desire to know God more deeply and to pray in His will.

We’ve been asking what it means to adore God. In the course of our conversation we stumbled over the old word hallowed: “hallowed by thy name.”  We’ve scratched our heads and wondered exactly what does that word mean?

So far we’ve learned it means to treat something as holy and sacred, to give it our ultimate concern and make it the most important thing in our lives. Therefore, in teaching us to pray is Jesus asking us, at the very start, to adore God and praise Him above all else?

My prayers often start with confession and petition rather than adoration. Of course, it is good and right to confess my sin and to seek God’s forgiveness. It is also good and right to bring all my petitions to Him. But when my sin and my requests, even prayer requests for ministry, dominate my prayer life and subsequently control my thoughts, then I realise it’s time to ask questions.

Have my priorities shifted? Is worry driving me to lift someone or something above my adoration of God; because Jesus teaches me that adoration, praise of God, should come before all my confessions and petitions. First and foremost, He is to be, and to remain, my beloved father.

Admittedly, we all come to God for different reasons and with differing struggles. Yet despite the struggles we must learn to look beyond our world of worries and determine to let our hearts adore Him; Christianity after all is not based on externals but upon an intimate relationship with Him.

“Help me keep my perspective right Lord,” I pray. “Let me adore you so that praise permeates every part of my being.” Sometimes I fumble to find adequate words of thanksgiving. At other times my words seem hollow and mechanical. But as I see more of His beauty, adoration blossoms until praise flows freely and His truth, mysteriously, begins touching my life, and I start seeing the world right side up; through His eyes. By His grace healing comes to my deformed heart and my deformed view of the world as I find myself forgiven, accepted, and able to trust others.

Adore God first I repeat, reminding myself that praising Him helps me keep Him in His rightful place and enables everything else to fit into its rightful place too.