Prayer - Adoration

Adoration is recognising the glory of God

Yours, O LORD, is the greatness and the power and the glory and the victory and the majesty, for all that is in the heavens and in the earth is yours. Yours is the kingdom, O LORD, and you are exalted as head above all. - 1 Chronicles 29:11

Fred Buechner helps us with this definition. “Glory is to God what style is to an artist. A painting by Vermeer, a sonnet by Donne, a Mozart aria each is so rich with the style of the one who made it that to the connoisseur it couldn't have been made by anybody else, and the effect is staggering. The style of artists brings you as close to the sound of their voices and the light in their eyes as it is possible to get this side of actually shaking hands with them.” 

In the words of Psalm 19:1, "The heavens are telling the glory of God." It is the same thing. To the connoisseur, not just sunsets and starry nights, but dust storms, rain forests, garter snakes, and the human face are all unmistakably the work of a single hand. Glory is the outward manifestation of that hand in its handiwork just as holiness is the inward. To behold God's glory, to sense God's style, is the closest you can get to God this side of paradise, just as to read King Lear is the closest you can get to Shakespeare.

Glory is what God looks like when for the time being all you have to look at him with is a pair of eyes.

Glory to God in the highest,

and peace to His people on earth.

Lord God, heavenly King,

Almighty God and Father,

we worship You, we give You thanks,

we praise You for Your glory.

Lord Jesus Christ,

only Son of the Father,

Lord God, Lamb of God,

You take away the sin of the world:

have mercy on us;

You are seated at the right hand of the Father:

receive our prayer.

For You alone are the Holy One,

You alone are the Lord,

You alone are the Most High,

Jesus Christ, with the Holy Spirit,

in the glory of the Father. Amen