On bended knee, find rest. Bless and be blessed.
What if just
one
prayer time a week was spent in the position above? Bent down, hands open, aware of our need for mercy, revering God, simply enjoying the privilege to be at the feet of the Savior of the world?
Within the last year or so, I learned about this position when I was looking up the word “bless” in bible dictionaries. I had no idea there was a concrete, highly descriptive image and action behind the word “bless”. It taught me about a prayer position that I was not taking. It suddenly made me realize how lazy I had gotten with my body when in prayer. I realized I rarely, if ever, bent my knees to welcome God, to humble myself in bodily position as I talked with Him. As I write this, I realize again, I do not take this position nearly enough with Him.
“I will bless the LORD, who hath given me counsel…”- Psalm 16:7 KJV
According to bible resources, the word bless is defined as Hebrew word 1288 and is used 330 times in the Old Testament. It means to bend the knee, to kneel down, with the primary notion of breaking down, offering a gift. “Let us kneel down before the Lord God our Maker”. It has the idea of adoring God on bent knee with an attitude of reverence towards Him. It is also defined as God bending the knee to extend gift, i.e. His divine favor reaching down and causing one to prosper, bestowing blessings.
After learning of this definition, I took time to picture God at my feet giving me a gift. It was uncomfortable. I felt I was offending Him. Who was I to have God at my feet to receive a divine gift? Who was He to serve me? I know my reaction to that picture of God at my feet was intense because in fact, I had a long season of mistreating God. I had a time of expecting and demanding He give me what I wanted, the way I wanted it. So I was quick in my spirit to reject this image because I still have grief in my heart over treating Him that way. But God had intent with me to transform how I was reflecting on the image of Him at my feet.
Jesus being at our feet, offering us divine gift is in fact scriptural. He is at our feet, the One who though being God did not use that to His own advantage, rather he made himself nothing, and took the form of a servant, being made in human likeness. He humbled himself and became obedient to a shameful death on a cross. Therefore God exalted him… (see Philippians 2:1-11)
If I really connected with the countless times He has bent down and offered me love, a cleansing, forgiveness, grace, mercy, help, hope, revelation, wisdom, discernment, protection, joy, healing, correction, rest, release, freedom, strength, purpose, friendship, comfort, a new beginning, a new song, creative inspiration, truth… I would be returning on bended knee with hands open, bowing and blessing the Name above every other name. In His perfect wisdom, the LORD was showing me something that needed to change in my prayer position. On bended knee, there was a blessing of rest and a new intimacy to experience. But oh how often we miss out on this!
We spend soooo much time wanting to “know” don’t we? We put sooooo much energy reaching for knowledge, so that we can “have” and “get”. It’s quite normal to human nature, so normal it takes radical transformation to recognize how much we strive. But we need to do a hard stop and realize how much of our prayer language is strife. Striving is often a major portion of our prayer language. And when striving is our prayer language, our prayers often sound like this;:
“God, what is happening? What are you doing? Where are you? What am I supposed to do? How come this isn’t working? What should I try next? Get me out of this situation, I can’t do this anymore. I want more and feel held back. Nothing is changing… (Prayer time ends in frustration… we move on with our day).”
Coming to God in striving leads to hurried prayer, rapid fire words aimed at God. We can fool ourselves that our times of prayer are prayer when in fact they are just “mulling over” sessions with ourselves. Our thoughts quickly trail off to processing on our own. One time when I felt I was praying a lot, I sensed the Lord convict me that I mostly talked to myself, and kept Him in the background. What I thought was prayer, was just me merely processing with myself, to points of over processing. In this mode, one starts anxious and ends frustrated and totally misguided. God was never really invited in to that “prayer time”.
If we are honest, too often He is just treated as a sounding board for frustrations. Nothing is released, no thoughts are transformed; we keep the burden and resist Him. We do not receive the gift of rest he has in His hand to give us.
What if just one time a week, we bent down in reverence and blessed God, hands empty, heart open? There is rest in this position, supernatural rest God will offer that cannot be explained!
Your heart will soften with face bowed low. Tears might come instead of anger. Deep sighs will release what words cannot express. He’ll quiet you with His love. He’ll transform you at His feet. God exalts the humble. He raises the weary and burdened. What is sown in weakness is raised in power. What is sown in the natural body is raised a spiritual body. Do the simple thing. Bow at His feet, come empty handed. Revere the One who left His Father’s glory to serve you on the cross. If this is all you offer, He will be greatly blessed and so will you!
One day, every knee will bow and confess that Jesus Christ is Lord…
