There is an acronym for prayer with the letters A C T S: acts.
A - stands for adoration - giving praise to God.
C - stands for contrition - asking for God’s forgiveness and expressing sorrow for our sins.
T - stands for thanksgiving - giving thanks to God.
S - stands for supplication - presenting your prayer petitions to God.
In this acronym, it list our pray requests last, only after we praise God and give thanks. Often, our requisitions and our own petitions are what comes out first, unfortunately. Sometimes, our prayer requests often come out as demands, don’t they? And then we get impatient with God when our prayers are not answered quickly and the way we want them answered.
So, this is one template of prayer. In the first reading from the book of Daniel, we hear about another prayer. This prayer comes out of some difficult circumstance. A group of young men - Azariah, Hannah, and Mishael - were thrown into a fiery furnace for their unwillingness to worship foreign idols. Yet, rather than curse the king, or being mad at the Lord, Azariah sings a song to express his unwavering faith in the Lord. Azariah praised God for His mercy and admitted the sins of his people that put them in dire straights. In answer to this prayer, God delivers these young men from the fiery furnace unharmed. Like that acronym I present, Azariah praised God first, and then presented his prayer petitions and requests last. No matter where we are in our reality, we should praise God for his love and mercy and admit our sins. Let us not go to God in self-centered and self-absorbed. Let us go to God in prayer in the midst of our humility.
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