Kneeling

I've been reading Conversion Dairies for  a couple of years now. I appreciate Jen's sense of humor, her search for Godliness and her real life struggles with managing a home, lots of kids and a life of devotion.


 She is also the host of 7 Quick Takes which is a weekly indulgence for me, not only to peek at slices of others lives, but as a wrap up of my own week. It is ohsoeasy for me to see all that isn't done instead of finding fulfillment and joy in what has taken place. Quick Takes and Weekly Review keeps me focused on the positive wins and accomplishments of each week, a critical, but realistic, analysis of what we've done. (True Confessions, I'm an extremist and, if left to my own devices would either do everything at once, or nothing at all. My weekly review is all about self management.)

FRANCISCO DE ZURBURÁN
 THE LAMB OF GOD

Jen also has a great list of blog links if you are looking for enriching reading but I wanted to share one that really spoke to me this week by Heather King and  her post about why she kneels in church. Short but powerful.

While I participate in a faith tradition that does not kneel, and couldn't even if I wanted to thanks to a knee injury, I love the thought that goes behind this attitude of worship.

I read, years ago, a tract by a preacher who had renounced Martial Arts once he became a Christian for this reason; that the physical postures that we take have spiritual meaning. Putting aside the conversation about Martial Arts, I believe he has a good point. Often our attitude of worship is common. We want to make the Gospel message accessible, so we tell people to "come as they are" and this carries over into tables of doves Starbucks in church and people coming and going willy nilly, and our whole attitude is relaxed and common and trivialized. From what I read we're not called to make the gospel accessible, or really anything else. We are simply to respond to the siren song of the Master of the Universe, who is pure and unblemished (for a great discussion on the  Holiness of God read DeSilva's  excellent book, Honor, Patronage, Kinship and Purity: Unlocking New Testament Culture) 

I wonder if, perhaps, part of the reason the evangelical church in America is watching our youth slip away at the startling rate of  96%  to secularism within weeks of their going off to college is because they've never experienced the holy, come face to face with the sacred, knelt in humility. Or, for that matter, witnessed anyone else doing it either. We assume that our kids will catch our faith, yet we don't take the time, or have the inner resources ourselves, to demonstrate what that faith really consists of. Religion is easy but faith lived out loud is a deep and difficult calling.

Kneeling puts it faith in perspective. Once or twice in my life when I've prayed in a group, a grown man will get down on his knees to pray before the Lord, or raise his hands when doing so. It almost always brings me to tears. It is such an act of humility and submission, and powerlessness.  When we kneel we are humble, seeking, childlike. We acknowledge our own weakness and want, our own humanity. It allows us to see that  He is God and we are not.