You’re ready to pray. You’ve decided just to pray aloud whatever words come to you. First, however, you have to think about your posture. Should you stand, kneel, sit, lie down, do handstands? It’s not a silly question. I was once accosted by a group of looney-tune religious people who asked me to pray with them. I agreed. They told me to kneel in the street. I said God didn’t care what posture a person adopted to pray. They became enraged insisting I HAD to keel. There endeth the praying.

I still don’t think God cares what posture you use to pray. Second-century pictures show Christians standing with their hands raised to shoulder height, palms facing outward. It’s the way I pray when I lead worship. If I’m in a church with kneelers, I kneel. At home I usually follow my Aunt Martha’s instructions. Sit still (no fidgeting), fold you hands (so you can’t bother anybody else), and close your eyes (so you can’t see anything around you).  Many times, though, I have my eyes open because I’m reading from a book. Occasionally I gaze at a lighted candle or an icon or a cross. Sometimes I hold a cross or a string of beads.

You have to find a posture or postures of prayer that work for you. My practical advice is that you find a posture of prayer that is comfortable so that you can spend a substantial period of time praying, but no so comfortable that you fall asleep. One more suggestion: think of the posture you take not as preparation for prayer, but the beginning of prayer. It helps us to see that prayer is more than the words we say.

Read Psalm 95, and remember: God loves YOU unconditionally.

Wayne