Tuesday, April 29, 2014

Is it okay if my praise is uncertain?

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Psalm 99 tells us to praise God, yay!

But, uh, I don't really do that much. Why? Well I've realized it's because I feel a little weird about telling God things like "you're great!" and "thank you for doing XYZ" and "I praise you because of this or that" when those things might not even be true.

Like, what if I'm praying and talking to God, and God's like, "What the heck are you talking about?"

Image source.

That's why I always felt a little weird about the purity-culture idea of "praying for your future husband." What if God knows you're never going to get married, and he has to listen to you pray all this stuff that has no relation at all to reality?

And what if I want to praise God for things that aren't actually true about him?

I mean, I believe they are true, but man, I'm not so confident in my own opinions that I want to start telling them to God, as if he obviously agrees with me.

What to do?

Just be honest. Just tell God how I feel. Tell God all of this. Tell him I'm not sure I can declare stuff to him with such certainty, but I do believe some pretty nice things about him. Maybe say, "God, I believe you're really good. And I really believe someday you'll come and change this world and make it better, and I think that's really great."

Yeah. That's all the advice I have about prayer. Just be honest.

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This post is part of a link-up on the topic of Psalm 99. To read other people's posts, click here: God is great, and yet...

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