Prayer and Praise

Take heart dear friends! I promise to make this post much more uplifting than my recent fare. Today I was having some interesting thoughts about human nature. I realised that my blog is very indicative of my spiritual life: Most of my contact with God involves asking for something. Sometimes it's selfish requests, like "Lord help me make friends" or "Can I please get my brain on track with this homework?" Sometimes the requests seem more noble, like asking for forgiveness and the strength to repent. 
But no matter how good my intentions are with my requests, I often leave out a key element in my contact with God: Praise! James 5:13 expresses the need for both requests and praise well: "Is any one of you in trouble? He should pray. Is anyone happy? Let him sing songs of praise." 
Sadly, I'm only thinking about this now, when I have some major praise due to God. Really we should be sending up prayers and songs and shouts of praise for the "little things" in life, even when they're hard to see amongst hardship. Thankfully, God does forgive everything, even our "sins of omission", when we don't do something that we should. Those of you who read my post directly previous to this one will be glad to know that I'm settled in at college and having a wonderful year so far. My living conditions have significantly improved, I've been spending time with wonderful people who I'm glad to call my friends, and my classes (although difficult) promise to be stirring and thought-provoking. Best of all, I can much more easily make it to chapel services more often. This is an occasion for exuberant praise, and although I'm late in realising that I should give credit and glory to God, I gladly give it now.
Another cautionary thought I had, however, was to search for a balance between using my praise as a thanks offering and witness, and drawing attention to myself so that people are distracted from my purpose. Maybe a blog post was a bad idea? I don't really think so, since I'm explaining myself fully and this blog has a limited audience. Jesus does caution us in Matthew 6 to be discreet though. He warns in verse 5, "And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by men. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full." Does this mean you should never pray in public? No! It's simply a warning to check your motives. When I'm blogging, am I trying to delve into God's word and learn from it, or am I trying to talk about my life using Scripture as a guise? When we pray in public, is it out of real need or gratitude, or do we just want to see how people react? When we post something religious on facebook, are we truly trying to be a witness, or just showing off our Christianity as a personality trait? It's something to think about. A bit later in Matthew 6 Jesus gives another warning, "And when you pray, do not keep babbling on like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words." (verse 7) That verse might inspire a rule to live by. In public, everyday life situations, keep religious comments brief. Don't be afraid to profess your faith, in thanking God and telling people that you'll pray for them. But make sure not to say so much that people view you as "too holy". We live in a judgmental and impatient world. We have a difficult task of leaving a good impression of Christ wherever we go. But we have each other for support, and the Holy Spirit is working through everything we do.