KNEEL.

For this reason I kneel before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name. I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen. – Ephesians 3:14-21

Lately I have found myself engaging in a type of prayer that before this summer was not even in my vocabulary. If you keep up with my extremely scatterbrained blog or know me well you know that a certain portuguese girl has a huge piece of my heart! This summer I was sitting in Glebba-B (the favela, that Jacqueline lives in) during a worship service and I felt a strong urge to lift Jacqueline and her family up in prayer, this act in and of its’ self was not foreign but after a few minutes of prayer God was telling me to take a step further and pray on my knees. My first reaction was what?! I have never done that before and I am one of two Americans in this whole service that will cause an inordinate amount of attention to myself, so after a few minutes of wrestling with the spirit I ducted outside and the next thing I knew I was on my knees in a favela church restroom lifting up a very broken young girl and her family. Since that day I have found myself in my closet kneeling beside my clothes hamper lifting up certain people, situations, things, etc. to the Lord. Every time I have prayed in this manner I have acquired a huge amount of peace and closeness with our creator. At first I was unsure why God asked me to come to him in prayer on my knees but now I look at it as a chance to praise God in a refreshing and humbling way- off the top of my head three different things happen more or less in this position. Babies first learn to crawl before they can walk: babies are an incredibly sensitive creation that needs constant attention, care, comfort, guidance, and love from their caregivers- are we any different? Beggars often times cry out from their knees for whatever it is that they  need- when we pray do we not often times cry out for our needs? The traditional proposal is done by a man kneeling on one knee to ask for his future wife’s hand in marriage, this state is one of great vulnerability and displays the uniting of two hearts in love  thus painting a beautiful picture of Christ the bride-groom opening up himself to us, the bride of Christ.  My hope in sharing this with you is that you will not be like me and neglect this opportunity to praise and pray to our Father in a way that not only humbles us but brings us closer to our maker as well! The whole concept is still incredibly new to me but I feel as though I needed to share this experience and encourage others who may be very much like myself and are completely uneasy about the idea of occasionally or daily kneeling to prayer.