There are many postures we may assume as we pray. And many of us get quite creative. We clean the house, drive, jog, kneel, lay prostrate, march, jog, sit, stand, walk, and wash dishes while praying. Some of us want to brush our teeth, bathe, comb our hair, and get cute, while others skip the formalities and get straight to the business of prayer. Some prefer mornings, while others opt for noon, evenings, or night. You see, praying without ceasing is the goal, so anyway we get it done should be acceptable. Or is it?
There are some basic questions we can ask ourselves to help us. Are we humbly approaching the throne of grace? Are we repentant of sin? Are we submitting to the will of God for our lives? If we believe prayer is a conversation with God, are we listening for Him to answer? Or are we making a bunch of requests known and moving on? Because honestly, is it a conversation if only one person is talking? Ouch! Because I am guilty, my mind moves faster than my mouth, and I often ramble as I desperately try to compete with my mind and verbally express my thoughts.
Without bringing condemnation and in my defense, I have spur-of-the-moment thoughts where someone pops into my mind and I say a quick prayer. A song on the radio may resonate in my soul, and I say a prayer of thanks to God. Or I am grateful for acts of kindness shown to me and others by a great God that we serve. But I also pray because the character flaw of cutting someone with my mouth rose because they hit a place of vulnerability. Or I have a flashback of following someone home because they cut me off in traffic. Like the person in front of me just did, and I need to cast down that vain imagination quickly. The problem is not the quick prayers, nor the many postures we used to pray, because in our efforts to pray without ceasing we are creative.
The problem lies deep within our creativity. Have we gotten so creative at praying without ceasing that we forgot to give room for God to converse back with us? In an ideal world, a daily conversation with God is great, but realistically many of us neglect to do so. And truthfully, the longer we go without doing it, the more we forget to do so. I mean prayer where we sit, tell God how great He is, repent for sin, and quietly wait for Him to speak to us. You know the prayer where we lay prostrate before God and not fall asleep. This is no good for me because I will fall asleep. My mind is so busy that if I lay down, it thinks all activity for the day is done.
But what works best for me is kneeling to pray. When I kneel to pray, it sends a message through the rest of my body. The posture of kneeling before God tells my mind to be alert and that it’s no time to sleep but to be in position for a word from God. Kneeling sends a message to my heart that it’s time to reverence God therefore asking Holy Spirit to search me and create in me a clean heart, check my hands for blood, and mouth for murder. And with everything bowed down, reverencing God, I have now created an atmosphere for the King to come. And then – He speaks.
Can we hear God in the postures mentioned earlier? Yes, we can. But I have learned that when we prepare for a conversation with Him. He honors our reverence with thoughts, ideas, revelations, and solutions that only He can give. Our time in God’s presence is essential to the life we live daily. He reminds us of His promises, reveals the plans of the enemy, keeps us on our path to purpose, re-establishes us on our path when we have wandered off. He encourages us when we’ve done well and chastises us when we are wrong. Oh, how wonderful it is to kneel at His feet, and the beauty of it is, we benefit from it. Let us not forget to seek first the kingdom of God, and a good way to start is to kneel.
Categories: L L McAdoo Straight From The Heart
