Kneel in Prayer: How Your Posture Changes Your Perspective

I’ve found myself praying on my knees more recently.

While there is no one right way or even best posture for prayer, I got to thinking about how my perspective changes when I get on my knees.

It’s not an everyday-life position, so it forces a shift in perspective.

Kneeling in Prayer Brings Humility

It’s a posture of humility and submission. I’m smaller when I kneel, and I feel that smallness. Not in a shaming way. Small in a way that reminds me God is in control, and I am not.

I find myself being even more raw and transparent in the expression of my deepest desires. I’m way more honest, because kneeling is a trusting position. You only humble yourself and make yourself smaller with someone you trust and who cares for you. It makes me feel like a small child facing their dad.

When I kneel to pray, I picture my head in my Father’s lap. I sense His hand gently patting my head. A reassuring and comforting mental image. It brings a sweet memory of my earthly dad comforting me when I learned I had cancer.

God’s love and compassion is as real now as it was in that moment 12 years ago with my dad.

Taking the Posture of a Child

Getting on my knees reminds me that I’m forever God’s child.

I need His daily provision and protection on this earthly journey on the way to my forever home in heaven. I fully expect to fall to my knees, and probably flat out on my face, in gratitude and awe when I finally get to meet Him face to face.

Kneeling gets our bodies into the same positions as our minds and hearts when we really think about God. But you don’t have to physically kneel to pray. Humility is what God desires from us. Recognition that God is big and good and glorious.

Whether we bow our heads, our knees or our hearts, let us never forget that God is worthy of all our praise. He owns it all and everything, including our lives, our kids, our marriages, our possessions, our money, absolutely EVERYTHING.

May we frequently offer our praise and give Him thanks for His extravagant love and grace freely poured out for each one of us through the death and resurrection of His Son, Jesus. Our problems, worries, and future are secure in Him.

All that’s needed on our part is to receive the gift of Jesus. In humility. On our knees. With our hands open to our Father, who wants to give us good things.

Like I said, kneeling forces me to shift perspectives. To see my life and circumstances in a different way. This chorus of an old hymn by Bill Gaither came to mind as I was thinking of that perspective I get from kneeling.

The chorus goes:

“Because He lives, I can face tomorrow

Because He lives, all fear is gone

Because I know He holds the future

And life is worth the living just because He lives”

I encourage you to kneel today as you pray, if you’re able. Just to try it. See if it changes how you pray, how you see yourself, or how you see God.

Because from the perspective of my knees, I am reminded that no matter how hard this life is, it is indeed “worth the living because He lives.”

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