Posture in prayer

I have heard it said, God is not concerned about our posture in prayer, and I believe that expresses an element of truth. I do not believe God is so concerned about the position of our bodies rather the position of our hearts. The posture of our hearts—that is what is really crucial. That is what is important above all. But that is not the same thing as saying that posture is irrelevant, because posture does say something about our attitude. Just like if you had an audience with the President. You would not slouch. If you were slouching it would say something about the regard with which you hold him. If you were to go into the [president's] office and kick back in a chair and kind of slouch back and cross your legs and say, hey, Mr. President, how is it going? it would be inappropriate, wouldn't it? And you may be the greatest lover of our President there ever was; you may think he is the greatest President that there has ever been. But for you to slouch would communicate something else altogether. And really would call into question whether or not you esteem the encounter as you want.

If you understand where you are, in whose presence you are, and esteem and value the meeting with that one with whom you are meeting, it is going to affect your posture. And it is not as though we can separate ourselves from our bodies; we are psycho-physical beings, and the posture that we assume affects the attitude, even as the attitude affects the posture. So there is a significance to it. I am not saying it is ultimate. No, the heart is ultimate. In Scripture you can stand when you pray and you can kneel when you pray, and you can stand and lift your hands as you pray and kneel and lift your hands as you pray. All of those are postures…

I once heard John Stott say, slouching in prayer is the abomination of desolation. Maybe he was overstating the case, but I do think that one should not be slouching. One should not be reclining, not even one's legs crossed in prayer. I do not want to impose a kind of legalism, but that just betrays a kind of informality that I think is unwarranted. To be sitting back, legs crossed while prayers are being offered, does not seem right to me. Not when these other postures are commended to us. If we are going to sit, we should be sitting with our heads bowed. We can kneel. We can bow. If we stand, it is with our heads toward heaven or bowed reverentially. [Some] preachers lift their hands, because again, that is a posture in prayer…That is not an enthusiastic impulsive reaction to the mood of the moment. It is a posture, and all of these postures are meant to be such that encourage a reverential attitude in the heart. The heart ought to move us into a reverential posture, and the posture ought to move us into a reverential attitude, because we have an audience with the King; we have an audience with the Almighty. When we do so, it ought to be with a posture that is consistent with the reverential attitude and outlook that we ought to have on such a great occasion.¹

Terry L. Johnson