Our thanks and praise is an offering our God truly loves and delights in.
It has been an interesting process for me, raised in a sub-culture that doesn't do this, to learn to thank and praise God frequently and openly. I sometimes wonder if my praise and gratitude, heard by the more traditional LDS people in my life, sounds irreverent to their ears. As Jesus has methodically dismantled the many barriers I had put up between us, though, I've become truly comfortable with His name, with talking to Him randomly and whenever, with including Him in every moment of my day that I possibly can. Just being conscious of the reality of His presence, always with every one of us, carries such beauty for me.
You see, He won. He paid the ultimate price that defeated sin and death, so He could have the power, and the right, to be present spiritually with us all the time. It's we who, in our weakness, are unaware of Him. He has been seated on His Father's throne, in heaven, but is spiritually present everywhere, always. Our side of that arrangement, we who have chosen to follow Him, is that we are physically on earth, but are seated, spiritually, with Him in heavenly places. Such a beautiful reciprocity, the Victory of Jesus rending the veil, opening the heavens to us and pouring down fellowship with God and empowerment to do His will, and the ability to praise and thank Him continually.
Father God, I am SO glad for the gift of praise! I am so gloriously thankful for the mechanism of spoken gratitude to You, that draws my heart ever nearer to You. You've said that You are pleased with the confessing of Your hand in all things, and I rejoice that I have the power to do so. Thank You, God. So much. In Jesus' name, amen.
