Clap your hands, all you nations;
shout to God with cries of joy.
How awesome is the Lord Most High,
the great King over all the earth!
Sometime this past week I thought about how I begin my prayers. I usually begin them with "Dear Father." God is our Father and this is a good way to begin a prayer. But for me it has become routine. There is not much emphasis on the dear part and I have come to say it too lightly. So I have decided to begin my prayers a different way for now with "O Great King."
We don't have much experience with kings in our democracy. We sought to overthrow one. We seek to be rugged individuals and self-sufficient but I think this is not something that I want to seek anymore. So since we don't have kings we make them - we worship things and people. But there is only one Great King. One who doesn't seek power because he is all powerful. One who created us to live in community with him. One who seeks only to do the best for his subjects; to love them not dominate them. This can be a hard thing for us to understand since we know only earthly kings who seek to dominate.