Excellent example. I was going to say the same thing, actually, but I won't now because that would be an inefficient waste of time. :-)

Additionally, our feelings of praise to God can exist in basically two forms: active or passive. Passive praise is just how we always feel -- thankful to God -- and yeah, He knows this. Of course. But do we? Even though it's in the back of our minds, we do still know it. We just aren't concentrating on it.

But ACTIVE praise is an action... Actually taking time from our day to focus on God and what He's done for us. Not just having it somewhere in our brains, doing nothing, but actually bringing the praise to the forefront of our minds and "broadcasting" it to the Lord through prayer. Engaging in active praise demonstrates our commitment to God above work or play or whatever else we might be doing. It's important that we meditate on the Lord, as the Bible says, and just "passively praising" fails to accomplish this.

Actually, this active/passive thing applies to all sorts of secular situations, too. Going back to the marriage example, it's a lot more effective to actively focus on your wife and tell her that you love her than to assume it's understood. Not just for her, but for both of you. Keeping important thoughts in the front of your mind strengthens the thoughts, and it has been shown time and time again to strengthen love for spouses as well. The same works for prayer. Focusing actively on God increases our love for Him; it also makes His work in our lives more evident and shows Him that we really do care enough to put Him first in our lives.

And it brings peace of mind and spirit, something that merely having nice sentiment in the back of one's head can never do.

God calls for followers, for disciples. These are people who actively pursue Him and desire to grow closer to Him. "Passive praising" is certainly not the kind of lackluster devotion He asks for. All through the Bible are examples of prayers that are answered, though I have yet to find a time when God granted what somebody kind of wanted but didn't bother to request from Him. That's just not the way God works. Nor have I seen any instances where God blessed somebody massively just for thinking nice thoughts about Him and keeping those thoughts to himself. God's not stupid.

-useless"I love this steak, but the chef knows, so why bother telling him? Because I CARE"ness