Teach Us to Pray预览

HE IS EXALTED

"For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever.”

He is exalted.

My junior highers and I laugh at my pitiful attempt to draw a chipmunk in a tree near his little chipmunk house. Learning grammar isn’t always fun, but this drawing effectively shows them the role of a preposition: the chipmunk can be in the house, atop the house, under the house, above the house, and so on. Prepositions show the relation of something to another thing.

I see them every time I read passages in the Bible – not the chipmunks but the preps – because God often tells us how close He resides with us. He's in us, for us, behind us, and below us. He hems us in. What comfort!! This is why we can easily praise a God worthy of glory, honor, and praise. His majesty and splendor surround us, His wonderful works know no limits, and His great deeds have no boundary.

Ephesians 4:6 says we serve one God, who is "over all and through all and in all." Verses like this one allow me more of an awareness of God's intimate presence. He rides in my car, cooks through my hands, and stretches my mind. I meditate on this while I wait for sleep, and this realization of his close proximity to me gives me more OF God. This awareness also recalibrates my focus on Him instead of me – which is really what fasting is about – focusing more on Him and less on ourselves. That can be difficult as we live in a very me-centric world. But we can shift away from ourselves and more towards his glorious presence, which makes it much easier to praise Him.

- Sue Likkel