Daddy, i can't reach

I went to a ladies fellowship thing last night to babysit annie's beautiful children, but ended up playing bunco because they needed another person to make the teams even. After we were done playing it was time for the speaker to get up and encourage us all. After a bit, sadly, I started to pay very little attention to the speaker, you know how it is when you really tired and a little old lady gets up at starts to speak in her soft little voice.
And right when I was about to give up all hope of getting anything out of the talk, she said something that for some reason made me think. " God will meet you where ever you are"
Usually I would have brushed it off as something you would say to someone who had really messed up their lives and needed a few spiratual words to get them back on track. But I realized that I had been trying to be, and do what I thought good Christians should do without ever getting anywhere. I have grown up in a Christian home, been saved since i was 3, and read my Bible pretty much every day for a long time. But most of the time I was just reading my Bible because I knew I had to, and praying long, empty prayers becuase I thought thats what good Christians did. I see people around me just saying the right things and praying the long, beautiful, yet completely empty prayers, and I had been thankful that I was not like that. Untill I realized that I could see through the mask not because I was so spiritual and did every thing right, but because I was just like them. Being a pastor's daughter, its almost like I'm expected to have it all together and for the longest time I thought I did. But now I see that all the things I was doing was just a pathetic attempt at being good enough, for my parents, my family, for the people watching me, and for God. Doing what I thought would get me close to God, I remember feeling like I was getting nothing out of my devotions thinking, mabye my devotion time is not long enough, mabye I have to read more. I thought I had to do more and be better for my relationship with God to get better. But thats me, trying to be good enough, me trying to reach God. "God will meet you where ever you are."

Psalms 16:2: O my soul, you have said to the Lord, you are my lord; my goodness extends not to you.

My goodness extends not to you, I cant be good enough for God, I will never be able to read my Bible or pray or say enough right things. Doing all that stuff is great and very important, but without the right heart I could pray till I'm blue in the face and get no where, because I can't reach God. My lack of enthusiasm for all I was doing was because I thought I had to be good enough before God would look down and decide that I had finally read my Bible enough, and I could now have a great relationship with Him. God will meet me where I am, I dont have to flounder around getting no where trying to reach God because on my own I will never get there. Ask and ye shall recieve, now I can get up in the morning and look forward to what God is going to teach me in my Bible reading. Because He is the one reaching down to me, I can't climb my way to Him.

praise - i think we all could do a little more of it

Psalm 8:9. O Lord our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth.

So often my prayers consist of things I want, here I am, talking to the Almighty God, Creator of the universe, and the first words out of my mouth are, "Dear God, If you could, I would like..."
That God would even consider listening to me is amazing, I'm one of countless others on this planet, yet if asked, God could pick my voice out of a crowd and proceed to tell you everything there is to know about me. That's my dad, my heavenly Father, the one and only God.
He has blessed me with so much, a thousand books could not hold everything God has done for me. After all this, more often than not, I can't even manage to squeak out a "thank you" before i proceed to bombard God with requests.
God should be getting much more praise than we give him. Its not the most natural thing in the world to start off our prayers, or anything for that matter, about someone else. The Lord's prayer begins, "Our Father who art in Heaven, hallowed be thy name." Not, "Our Father who art in Heaven, please help me get that ________" During my prayer time the past few nights I've realized how little my prayers consist of praise and thanks. I don't know about you, but its time I step out of the "me" box and start my prayers the way they should have a long time ago, with praise to my awesome God.