Gaze or Glance?
Years ago someone taught me this important prayer principle: “When you pray, Gaze on God and Glance on your Request.” All too often, I realized, we reverse this order when we pray. We gaze on our needs and barely glance at God. Consequently, we shrink God to the size of our needs. Our prayers become little more than worrying out loud. Instead, as we learn to fix our gaze on God, our needs do not seem quite so overwhelming after all. When we focus on God’s greatness, God’s love, God’s faithfulness, and God’s power, our needs shrink to the size of our God. We can bring them to him with confidence and faith. This is why the first half of the Lord’s Prayer is so important. Its words of adoration and worship are not merely preamble to petition and confession. No. By gazing on God in this way, our needs assume their proper place in relation to his majesty. For example …. We say, “Our Father,” and we realize that we belong to him not because of our performance but by his gracious...