Posture in Prayer

Two things have value in and of themselves: posture in communication, and prayer in your daily life. Posture makes us a good communicator. It makes lengthy, needful conversations possible. Aligning mind and body can change a marriage, and can mend a broken friendship. Prayer is the process of talking with God. It should be a time of great focus and emotion. But many of us struggle to stay focused. I am so, so easily distracted. Sometimes it is dumb things, like notifications on my phone. Other times I am trying really hard and just lose it. 

But what if we aligned the two things: posture and prayer? How can praying with our bodies affect our minds and bring us into oneness with God? Let's look at how godly men and women gave their all in prayer. Maybe the next great blessing from God is just waiting on you to give you full, body and mind, attention to Him.

Why is it so hard to stay focused when having a conversation?

What does our bodily orientation do to affect the value of a conversation?

Can a relationship be improved with better body language and "all-in" focus?

God is amazing. Why is it often hard to stay focused on Him in prayer?

What if we used posture as a tool for focus, to show God we give Him our all and all?

Transcript

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Welcome to the Excel Still More podcast. I am your host, Chris Emerson. I'm here to encourage you in your walk with God. Thank you for joining in. Today's podcast is sponsored by a wonderful company, Creation to Revelation. This group of Christians believe it is extremely important that we teach the Word of God to our kids. They have original graphic illustrations from the beginning of the Bible to the end, featuring the beautiful and consistent presence of Jesus throughout. You can explore all of that at Creation2revelation.com. I'm so thankful you're here, so let's get started. Hey, welcome back. I hope that things are going well for you, and I'm glad that you've joined. I am both thankful and excited today to talk to you about the connection between two important things, posture and prayer. There are some very practical changes that I've made in my own life to unite my body and mind in communicating with God. And as I was revisiting and re-implementing those things this week, I thought, you know, I'm sure I've done an episode on this before, but I think I may need to do another. And so I scrolled through to find out when, and we have not talked about this. And I really can't believe it because my vow to you is to share with you things that I know can help. And to me, in terms of building a stronger connection to the Lord, this is near the top of the list. I think probably for most of us, the best connection we've ever gotten between body orientation and praying to God is to bow our heads. But I need you to see today, there is so much more. There is a strong possibility that if you are anything like me with a wandering mind, that you need more. And today I hope to show you why and exactly what that might be. But first, let me separate the two words and talk about each of them in their own right, posture and then prayer. Because there are some changes that we may need to consider that have nothing to do with connecting the both of them. But when we make those changes independently and then connect the two, incredible results are guaranteed. So let's start with this idea of posture. The definition is really simple. It's just the way that you choose to position your body and orientation that you select for any given moment or situation. Particularly today, even before we specify God, I want to ask you about your posture in communication. Do you understand how impactful your body is in the way that you both share information with someone else and receive information from them? We call these nonverbal signs. They are every bit as important as the words we are speaking or the silence when we are listening. What you do with your body during communication either validates the process or undermines it. So it either confirms or diminishes the value of the experience for the other person. Let me give you a couple of really easy examples. A husband and a wife are in their living room about to have a conversation, but his favorite television show is on. So his body stays oriented towards the television. At least one of his ears trying to pick up the dialogue therein, his eyes darting left and right the entire time. All of the physical tools he has that he could be directing towards her, to listen to her and to answer her. He has sent in another direction. Of course, if she asks him, Are you listening to me? He would say yes. But it's hard to tell if he's lying to her or himself or both. It can go just as easily in the other direction. He has something to share with her or ask her, and maybe she's reading a book. She stays in her cuddled up blanket wrapped orientation turning towards the window with her book open, but she turns her head to the right and looks at him while he speaks. The entire time he is sharing this with her, there is a part of his mind that's saying, I'm bothering her. And you may already determine that anything she has to say in return will be half-hearted, because her heart is still in the book. When we do marriage counseling, the first few weeks are always about the value of communication and showing people that it is not just the words you speak, it is the tone and volume of those words, and it is also the nonverbals. We do a little exercise on this where I ask the husband to tell the wife two words. I'm sorry. And during the first go round, I just tell him, say that to her and mean it. And he does. Then I tell him, I want you to use your body this time. I want you to posture yourself in a way that communicates the sincerity of what you're doing. And then I want you to say it again the same way, but I want you to completely undermine the message with poor posture. And I don't know if that sounded like complicated instructions for you, but it is easily implemented every time. When he is insincere, his body is turned towards me or turned away, or he's moving away while he says it. When he is sincere, he turns his chair towards her, he faces her, his hands grab her hands, his eyes lock with her eyes, and he says those two words. Over the years, I'm pretty sure there have been a few times where her eyes started to water, like he finally meant it when it was actually just an exercise. But his words and his body were connecting to her. So posture in communication is important for the other person. But if we're being perfectly honest, it's probably even more important for you. At least if you're anything like me, my brain is bouncing around in all directions. Sometimes it's like I don't even feel comfortable unless I'm trying to do two or three things at one time. But of course, the brain can only think on one thing at a time. So I just end up bouncing around. Over the course of ten seconds, I may consider five different things. So how then? When I'm at church having a conversation with some brother in Christ who's going through something, how am I supposed to pay attention? There are other people all around me and lots of things going on. Getting my body and my posture into the event is the only way. I need to stand closer to them than other people, orient my shoulders towards them and look at them. Yes, I want them to feel like what they're saying is valuable, but honestly, I'm just trying to keep myself in that moment. You can multiply this point by all of the social media we have at our disposal, trying to talk to someone or listen to them when there's a cell phone in your hand, where your mind and eye is constantly drawn down to look at it and to flash from one post to another. So posture sometimes isn't just about positioning, it's about emptying your hands of obstructions, of distractions. Okay, let's hit the pause button on posture and talk more about prayer. Most of us would readily admit that there is no communication in life as vital as daily communication with God. We know that part of that is reading his word and hearing him, and another part by his will and desire is for you and me to pray to God, to share with him, to commune with him, to talk to him. And I want to say this about prayer. I've been preaching twenty one years and I did very few sermons on prayer in the first ten years. I thought, well, prayer is easy. Everyone knows what it is, and everyone knows how to do it, and I'm probably the only person in this church who has trouble with it. It's just one of those weird weaknesses in my life. I'm like the dog who sees the squirrel and I'll get over it. Well, two things happened. Number one, on my own, without real even physical changes, I never got over it. And two, it became apparent in a bunch of different ways that nearly all of us face those same frustrations in trying to keep a consistent, powerful, and emotional connection with God day in and day out. What I want you to begin to do before we connect our two words today is think about what it usually is that cuts your prayers short. Maybe you're laying in bed at night and you're completely exhausted, and falling asleep cuts your prayers short. Maybe you've got the cell phone next to you and a notification comes through and that cuts it short. Maybe you're sitting at the dinner table, but you already have your fork in the noodles and it's held up towards your mouth, and you remember, hey, I need to pray. And that prayer tends to be pretty short also. Maybe you're driving in the car. That's a great time to talk to God. But something happens out the front windshield that demands your attention, and the prayer gets stopped. Now, for you, it may be something else, something mental, like I just can't keep my mind focused on one thing. I try to sit down for 10 minutes and just talk to God, but by minute three, all this other stuff is flooding in, and I feel like the prayer doesn't have value any longer anyway. Look, the first thing I'm here to tell you about that is same. Those are the issues that I face. But I'm also here to tell you that the secret is understanding how important your body is in what you're trying to do with your mind. It reminds me of Romans 12, 1 and 2, you know, about being a daily living sacrifice and proving that God's will is good and acceptable and perfect. And that chapter talks about the mind, but that verse talks about the body. So let me use the rest of today's episode to show you biblical examples of how those two things work together to commune with God in a better way. I will say this: I love this study with young people. Just about every time over the last maybe three years that I've been off preaching a gospel meeting and they've asked me at any point to spend time with their young people, I've gone straight to this conversation about their prayer lives and how to use their whole self to enrich it. Oftentimes, if we're in a room with carpet or something, I'll have a young man come to the middle of the room and articulate biblical examples of full body prayer. Part of the reason why I'm drawn to that is I know what a challenge it is for our young people. With social media and technology and all of the different things that they have available to them, how are they ever really going to get their mind on God unless they have oriented their whole self to be devoted to it? You may not be in a position right now to try these different bodily alignments in prayer that I'm going to reference from scripture, but I hope that you will soon. You might be surprised to know that in Scripture the least mentioned thing is bowing the head. Certainly I have no problem with that. Although if you have an iPhone in your hand in your lap while your head is bowed, you may be in a worse position than if you just stared straightforward. But here are four examples from Scripture I want to lay out for you, and then we'll talk out what it looks like. Number one, kneeling before God. Throughout the Old Testament history of the kings and in the Psalms, and even in Philippians 2, this great picture of what will happen when we all see Jesus face to face. The people are on their knees. They're not walking here or leaning there, they're not oriented in any direction except down, onto the floor, putting a pause on wherever they might be going so that they can kneel before the Lord. Kneeling is a sign of earnestness, humility, and the authority of Christ in your life. The second position we see in Scripture goes one step further, lying prostrate before God. This is more than just being on your knees. This is putting your face to the floor. Whether you extend your hands out in front of you or lay them by your side, they are unable to do anything because you can't see anything. Your eyes are on the floor. We see this in Genesis, in the book of Numbers, and even before Jesus in Luke chapter five. I double dare you to find some place to lay prostrate on the floor before the Lord and think of anything else than the glory of God. You can start to see how the value works in a couple of ways. One, I'm not looking at anything else, I'm not oriented towards anything else, I have no digital media in front of me. Two, I am in a dedicated position. Nothing else can even happen from this position. And it creates this great physiological alignment between mind and body, signifying unworthiness and a need for God as I beg for mercy. That is a position I take in deep grief or trouble. The last two postures I want to share with you from Scripture maybe are more of an occasion for rejoicing and perhaps even public. We see frequently in Scripture that people looked up into heaven. The psalmist did so. Jesus did so in John 17. Jesus communicated with God by looking up into the heavens. And while this isn't as common in our culture, and that's really all the limitations are about, our culture, it is to me the equivalent of looking into the eyes of someone while I am talking to them, while I am listening. I'm not looking down or away, I'm looking at them. And in a figurative way that has real substance, looking up into heaven can do exactly that. If you happen to do this around other people, you would stand out. It's just not a part of our culture, but it may be a part of what you need to look up into heaven and see God upon his throne. The last one is my favorite, and also an extension of looking up into heaven, and that is the lifting of your hands. We see Moses doing this back in Exodus 9, the kings did so often, and in 1 Timothy chapter 2, it is literally said of the men of God that we will lift our hands to God in prayer wherever we go. To me, this has been an impactful change. Sometimes even at worship, my hands spread out or rise when someone is praying, and it almost has this physical sensation that unites with what is happening in my mind. If you try nothing else in terms of posture this week, somewhere in private, lift your holy hands to the Lord when you pray. The cool air on your palm will create a sensation in your mind, or at least it does for me in two ways. Early on in the prayer, it feels like I'm opening my hands and something is leaving my hands and being given over to God. And then I reach out a little further because I'm beckoning for God to return to me blessings and to fill me with the Spirit, and I can almost feel it happening on my hands. Now I should say, in case there are any preachers listening who need an example to illustrate the charismatic movement among the brethren, I know it's not actually the Spirit working or some physical touch, but it is this incredible point of focus that happens when I am praying to God with all of my being. I am using every tool physically he has put at my disposal to give him the time that he deserves and to connect to him in as many ways as possible. Now, just to recap those four things, believers in prayer in the Bible knelt before the Lord, put their face on the floor before the Lord, looked up into heaven, and even lifted their arms up towards the Creator. You do not have to do those things in order to communicate with God. But if you are like me and you struggle by the distractions of thinking of a dozen things over a twenty-second period, or looking at your cell phone, or walking off towards something else with the time you had devoted to God, it is time to make an offering to the Lord, a daily sacrifice that is not just of the mind, but the body as well. As we close, let me add a couple of bonus things that have helped me tremendously. One of them is very obvious. Try to find a quiet place. Maybe it's a closet or your bedroom. But just remember, so long as technology is there in any form, or a pillow that may take you instantly to sleep, you may need to go above and beyond even in a quiet place. Assuming a posture will help. But the last thing I would say, and I know I sound like a broken record, is that journaling has completely transformed my morning prayer life. When I am writing the paragraph on asking beautiful questions, or affirmations in Christ, or level three gratitude, my mind is focused on those things, but so is my body in the position that I take, my eyes as they observe it, and even my hands as it gets articulated on paper. I just passed day one thousand on that, and not only am I all in for another thousand, I'm looking at ways to do so at night as well. One of the things that has drawn me to all of this, any type of posture in prayer, is seeing God in heaven with a bucket filled with blessings that He wants to pour into my life, and He hears me ask for it, beg for it, but only in passing, in the midst of a hundred other things that I'm doing. What if I gave Him my full emotional and undivided attention in prayer and in Bible reading? With my mind, yes, but validated by my body. What will God do with faith and focus like that? I want to find out. Don't you? If so, give your complete attention to God today by uniting posture in prayer. Thank you so much for joining in today. If you enjoyed this program, consider sharing it with your family and your friends. As always, you can go to excelstillmore.life to sign up for the email, order the three-month journal, or just catch up on old episodes. And also, if you are looking for financial advice or future planning, give John Cunningham a call today, 205 913 1720. And remember this whatever you choose to do today, in the name of the Lord Jesus, excel still more.