A subtle shift in praying

It is a good thing, on a morning stroll, to send up requests to heaven for the blessings your Father wants you to have anyway-more love, more faith, more wisdom, all the fruit of the Spirit, more creativity as a mother. I like to spend the first minutes praising God and then I launch into my wish list.

But this morning, after a good half-mile in this vein, I was moved to give a little twist to my praying. Rather then stopping at simply asking for things, I followed through with thanking God in advance for them. For instance: "Thank you, Father, that you delight to give your children good things, and you will therefore increase my love and creativity." "Thank you, Lord, that you will give me what I need because You Yourself have told us that we can come to the throne of grace with confidence to find help in time of need."

Outwardly speaking, this shift is not a big deal, nothing but a rhetorical switch from interrogative to declarative, in a sense. But it was remarkable to me what a psychological difference the act affected in me as I did it. I say "psychological," but I am quite sure there was a spiritual enhancement, too.

I felt that as I was affirming-both in my soul and before God and the principalities (1 Corinthians 11:10)-a settled faith that God is fully able to do what I have asked Him to do and He was more honored. And what the confessing did for me personally was to impart a new and ineffable strength. I believe this was more than psychosomatic; it was the grace God seems always pleased to release in response to the verbalized declaration of His attributes.

Listen to commentaries by Andrée Seu.