PRAISE THAT FORMS YOU
Dear Friends,
I know it can be hard to read the Bible and pray everyday. In fact, I know it can be hard to do this most days. I encourage you to keep trying. I encourage you to pray and read God’s word written in busy seasons and lazy days, in times of sorrow and times of joy, in times when you feel beat up and low, and in times when you feel like you are on top of the world. All children of the Triune God need to hear Him speak everyday - and need to speak to Him everyday. So, strive to read your Bible and pray. Please pray for me that I will persevere in this.
I have been an Anglican Christian for a long time now. When I started on the Anglican way, I already had a longstanding way to “do my devotions”, in other words, read God’s word written and pray. As such, I had no real need to use the classic Anglican Way of doing daily devotions, namely, Morning and Evening Prayer. However, I have off and on throughout the years had long (and short seasons) of doing Morning and Evening Prayer for my devotional life. I am currently in a very long season of, Using? Doing? Entering into? God’s presence by means of Morning and Evening Prayer. One of the things I have always loved about these services is the frequent use of the Gloria Patri. In fact, if you would like to know what the heart of the Anglican Way of coming to know Jesus as Saviour and Lord and to grow up into maturity in Him is - it is expressed by the Gloria Patri. You see, in the English Reformation, Morning and Evening Prayer were developed to aid, encourage, and guide every Christian to read the Bible and pray every day, so if something is central to this endeavour, there is a good case that it is central to the English Reformation - the Anglican Way.
What makes the Gloria Patri the heart of the Anglican way? The number varies a little bit, but this morning when I used Morning Prayer I prayed the Gloria Patri nine times. I have not yet done Evening Prayer, but I checked. I will pray and praise God seven times this evening with the words of the Gloria Patri. The English reformers obviously thought it was important to form your mind, emotions, will, and lips by frequent praying and praising the Lord with these words - over a dozen times a day, seven days a week, fifty-two weeks a year.
Here is the Gloria Patri, “Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.” Note, the Gloria Patri is not said nine times in a row. It is spaced throughout the service. Four quick thoughts in closing about the value of being formed by praying this prayer.
First, to give glory to the Triune God is to acknowledge Him as the source of all that is good, true, beautiful, holy and honourable. For a moment the sinful tendency of my heart is still. That sinful tendency is to be blind and numb to these realities; or to take credit for them; or to vainly believe I am the measure of them; or to twist them in idolatrous or sinful ways. Instead, I am being formed to say what is true, that He is both the source and end of all that is good, true, beautiful, holy, and honourable. “Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.”
Second, praying this prayer forms in me gratitude to God for all that is glorious - the good, the true, the beautiful, the holy, lovely and honourable. It is true, “all good things come of Him and of His own have we given Him.” The Gloria Patri is a prayer of gratitude. “Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.”
Third, to pray this prayer is to learn good and true boasting. You boast in your politics, ideas, friends, ideologies, wisdom, talent, strength, money, education, nation - as if these finite and fallen things are what you can depend upon for strength and deliverance. But the uncreated God created creatures like you and me; the infinite God created the finite you and me; the eternal God created you and me to have a beginning and an end and dwell in time; the sovereign God created you and me to be under His intimate rule of love; the personal God created you and me in His image. To boast truely and wisely is to boast knowing that by His grace you are an adopted child of the true and living God. “Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.”
Fourth, to pray this prayer is to begin to learn how to truly see the change and chances of this fleeting world. The prayer is true light which pierces your self-deception so you can begin to see the real you in the real world with the real God. “Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.”
Come let us worship and pray!
George+