Praise HIM... not just what He does

I completely love this picture... it has to be one of my favorites. I was in the nursery one morning while all the children were dancing and singing and I happened to get this exact shot of Isabel shouting " ALLELUIA"!!! And honestly... I had barely heard her voice until then... what a blessed first word for a mama to hear! And a girl after my own heart... praising God with both hands in the air!!!!

This picture is perfect for today because God had an awesome talk with me this morning about praise. As I sat and started to pray... I always try to praise God first and not just lay my list before Him. We were created to praise so that is what we should strive to do first in our prayer life... well, just as I feel I'm starting to get a hold of that concept... God takes me in a little deeper and tells me to FIRST praise Him for who He is and His character THEN praise him for what He has done.

He told me... with our spouses and children... when they praise us... we would rather hear them truly praise our character and not just say "I love you so much because... you always clean the house"... We would rather hear them say something like... "I love you so much for your giving nature, you never hesitate to bless people... by the way... thank for cleaning the house today!" ... Right!?? So it totally straightened me out once He showed it to me in that light. And as the picture shows above... children have got it right... I guess for the very young, I rarely hear them list in their prayer life that they praise Jesus for all He's done when they are truly praising Him, but more often in a sense it's just ... "ALLELUIA!!!!!"