I highlighted the “authentic” part in red, and the “Imagine God’s Glory” part in blue.  Faithful prayer is an honest rendering of both before the LORD – in community and in our ‘prayer closets’.  It takes energy to pray in this way.  But we can and should let the Psalms speak for us.  We take them on as our Answer to God.  They are full of His promises, requests for healing and for His glory to show up in ways we can understand.  The Psalms are unnervingly authentic.

Sometimes the order is switched (glory first – I think of authenticity as coming first; I wonder if there is a sub-attern there).  Sometimes both are full of promises and lengthy.  Sometimes it is short, wonderful, to the point, talking about groaning and the LORD offering us sleep.  The pattern remains: authenticity + God’s Glory imagined into our lives (past, present, and future).