Saturday, 15 November 2008

• Planning Weekly Praise

  
  I've been thinking a lot about praise recently, and how important it really is in our relationship with God. There are so many levels on which it helps us, from keeping us more God-focussed and aware of what He is doing in our lives, to just plain helping keep our mood more positive because we see the good things that are happening over the bad.

  I'm planning on writing a proper post about praise, including some Bible verses that I can collect on the subject matter at a later date. For now, the purpose of this post is simple: I'm introducing the idea of something I came up with currently called 'Weekly Praise'. It's fairly simple, and I'm actually quite excited about trying it out. If I find it's effective enough (especially if I get some feedback from you guys that maybe you'd be interested in joining), I'm considering making a website based on a similar idea. Promoting open praise in an easy way, that won't take much time or effort but helps glorify God.

  Here's how it works:

  Each week, on a specific day, I'll be posting an entry titled "Weekly Praise", or something like that. The sole purpose of the post is to list off as many things I can think of that happened in the last week, that God blessed myself or others with. It can be a big event or miracle, or something as simple as a fleeting moment that really stood out in my mind. There's no limit as to how short or long the list should be, so long as I put some effort into coming up with items for it. Simply saying the same vague praises every week is too easy -- I'm looking for a way to make myself and others think of the blessings we so commonly take for granted or overlook.

  The idea of posting them on a blog, like this one, serves for two main purposes: 1) It allows others to share in your praise and therefor glorify God on a bigger scale. 2) It makes it more fun than being on one's own, and can make you a bit more accountable to keep it up, because others know if you don't.

  If you feel uncomfortable sharing these things online, or have personal blessings you wish to write about in private, there's absolutely nothing wrong with writing it in a journal or something. I would still suggest writing, though, as it makes it stand out more in your mind than a simple flash of a thought.

  This idea could also be expanded on, to become a more frequent or even daily routine if one wanted. Every day's blog post (or journal entry) could include a couple praises from what God did for them that day. For now, I'm taking it in slow steps, and see how it works..but in the future I may up it. It's just neat to have a scheduled time each week (or day), to spend thinking of this kinda thing. Can really improve one's relationship with God.

  So, in summary:

  • Pick a day of the week that you'll practise this on, and do your best to stick to it.
  • Write down or type as many blessings and reasons to praise God from the past week that you can think of, especially the little things we normally take for granted.
  • If desired, post it in your blog (or as a comment to my posts, if you wish), so that others can see how God has been working in your life and share in your praise towards Him.
  • Although not that important, you could tag your posts "Weekly Praise".

  What do you all think? Would you be interested in a thing like this? What about if it was a website you could join up with?

  I've also created a blogring for this idea, which you can check out and join here: Weekly Praise

  Blessings and Love,
  Sarah

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