Most Holy, Righteous and Eternal God, our Heavenly Father. Once again, O God, we come before Thine presence and Thine sight.”
This is the way my dad has begun his prayers for as long as I can remember. He always focuses on adoration of God. And as much as this has been modeled for me, I still find an adoration, God-centered prayer is not easy or natural to do.
Shifting Focus
Typically, when I pray, I tend to focus more on thanksgiving and supplication than on adoration. I find it much easier to give my attention to the hand of God and what He provides for me. It is easy to thank God for all He has done in my life and the lives of others. It also comes much more natural to ask God for what I need for myself and for the lives of those around me.
Simply put, it is easy to pray with a self-centered and other-centered focus as opposed to a prayer that is God-centered.
But my father’s example lines up with how Jesus also modeled adoration when He taught the disciples to pray. The Lord’s Prayer starts with adoration: “Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name” (Matt. 6:9).
When we pray with adoration to God, we focus on the heart of God and who He is. Our adoration tells God how much we love, worship, and adore Him. An adoration prayer ensures that we are in communion with the heart of God—our desire is for our heart to reach His heart.
Adoration Helps
It can be a challenge to grow in our prayers of adoration, so here are some tools to help you pray in ways that may not automatically feel natural:
1. Do a search. When you put “names of God in the Bible” in an Internet search engine, you get a plethora of websites that detail the multitude of names and their meanings. Make a list of names that most resonate with you to use in your prayers.
2. Choose Scriptures with the names and attributes of God or Jesus. You can use a concordance and look up the names of God or Jesus and then search for Scripture references that support the attribute. The Psalms are full of adoration prayers, such as Psalm 8, 29, 100, and 145.
3. Pray the names and attributes of God using the alphabet as a guide. For example, Alpha, Bread of Life, Counselor, Deliverer, Emmanuel—and ending with Yahweh and Zealous. Take up the challenge to fill out all the letters of the alphabet.
4. Practice adoration prayers both privately and publicly. Model how to pray with the focus on God and His attributes and encourage others to join you in the challenge of staying focused on adoration before moving to thanksgiving and supplication. People may quickly default to thanking God and interceding for others but try to direct them to stay with adoration so that they can grow with you.
Adoration Prayer Example
Here is an example to help you incorporate more adoration into your prayer life:
Dear God, I come to adore You today. You are worthy of my love, worship, and devotion. God, Your heart is full of mercy, grace and love. God, I call on Your name because the Bible says in Jeremiah 10:6: “No one is like you, Lord; you are great, and your name is mighty in power.”
God, You are Righteous, Holy, King of Kings, Lord of Lords, and Zealous. You are truly Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace (Isa. 9:6). It is truly in Your name we pray, amen!
Adoration can be challenging, but my earthly father’s example inspires me to adore my Heavenly Father!
DR. VANESA SCOTT-THOMPSON has held a variety of leadership positions in multiple churches. Her book Foundation Basics for New Members: Teacher and Student Manual was released in February 2022.
