Karen and I have prayed together every morning for many years. We begin our prayers with thanksgivings, and then we begin to praise God and hallow His name. In Psalm 100:4, we are told to enter His gates with thanksgivings and His courts with praise, so we have tried to begin our prayer times that way. In 1 Chronicles 16:4-7 David assigned Asaph and his relatives to give thanks to the Lord. That was their main job, to continually give thanks to the Lord. In Psalm 50:23 God tells us that those that offer a sacrifice of thanksgiving honor Him. In 1 Thessalonians 5:17-18 we are told to pray without ceasing and in everything give thanks for this is God’s will for us in Christ Jesus. In Hebrews 13:15 we are told to continually offer a sacrifice to God, that is, the fruit of lips that give thanks to His name. The scriptures are clear in the Old and New Testament that we are to continually give thanks to the Lord; that is His will for our lives.
Some mornings we may spend thirty minutes just giving thanks and praising His name. We do not even get to praying for our daily bread, for His protection, and the many other things that we usually pray about. But, God already knows those needs of ours, and He also knows that we have taken time to honor Him with our prayers of thanksgivings and praises. I encourage you to take time to thank God for all the things that He has done and continues to do in your life.