Have you ever prayed facedown?
Not like, kneeling, or with your head bowed and eyes closed, I mean like when you actually lay sprawled and prostrate on the ground -- no pillows or lush carpets.
Here, read this:
Recently, I was a little frustrated at God and decided to just talk with Him. For some reason, a little ways into my prayer, I felt like I was supposed to lie facedown with my limbs spread out. It felt really weird. Also wildly uncomfortable. Awhile ago, I probably would have laughed at how corny I looked. There is no normal way to rest your face on the hard ground, so you end up just smashing your nose and forehead into little rocks and dirt stuff. It's a very not cool position. You are dirty, you are cramped, you want to get up, brush off your cool shirt, and resume your previous upright position.
I was raised in churches where things were pretty reserved -- where if you raised your hands during worship that was like, a pretty big statement. Already, there are a few people who are reading this and thinking, "Oh gosh, I know where this is going..." but hang on for a second.
Here, read this:
A lot of things in my faith are pretty cliché. No, you know what, a lot of things in my life are cliché. From the clothes I wear, to most of the pictures I post on Instagram or the ways I approach reading the Bible and worship. They have been ingrained in me from... well I guess other people? It is almost an deep-set complex of wanting to fit in and belong that it drives me to do whatever I can to follow the "norms" set by other Christians. And so the fact remains -- I am a cliché. I do things the way other people do or the ways they say they should be done.
For that reason, reading the Bible as it actually is is very, very, very hard for me. I want to project all these weird clichés and christian-isms all over every passage and if a certain verse or phrase doesn't really fit with my Western Christian thing then I just kinda skip over it and label it "other-Jewish-culture-thing."
I assumed that being at the Nest I'd just read the Bible all the time and it'd be dope. That it wouldn't be so cliché. Truth is, I still struggle to read the Bible. Exactly the same way I did back home or anywhere else. So when I read verses like Matthew 26:39 where, "... He [Jesus] went a little beyond them, and fell on His face and prayed, saying, "My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from Me; yet not as I will, but as You will." I just read straight over it and say, "Yep, Jesus in anguish, submitting to God's perfect will. I've read that before." When I read this simple verse through the coloured lens of my American Christianity, I miss the little details and facts of this story. Jesus fell facedown, in the dirt of the garden, before the Lord. He was in ultimate submission before God. If Jesus is the Jesus everyone paints with the white robes, his robes definitely got dirty.
If you check out verses on prostration you'll realize that people fall on their face in front of God A LOT. It's actually like one of the most common responses to being in His presence. It's also why in the story of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego (Daniel 3) they were willing to die before they would fall down before anything but God Himself. This sort of worship was a big deal. But being from America, where we're all equal (or something like that), and the closest thing to a king is a President (who we don't bow down to), I guess I frankly don't really understand the whole prostrate myself thing. It's foreign to me. Therefore I never really considered doing it when in the Lord's presence.
But for some reason, God asked me to prostrate (no, not prostate) myself before Him. I'll be honest, I didn't get a massive spiritual high from smashing my face into dirt. I actually kinda got the opposite of a spiritual high -- more of a, "Why this, God?" But as I continued to lay there, God actually started showing me different areas of my day where I hadn't laid myself before Him. Areas where I should have thrown my own selfish thoughts or petty agendas facedown before Him, but I hadn't. Interactions with the boys, attitudes towards day-teams, frustrations at a lack of productivity, or putting my morning coffee before my time with my God.
Praying facedown is humbling. It's not glamorous or really that cool. It's dirty, it's self-debasing in a way. But it is appropriate. It's a right response to coming before the God of the universe -- no matter "how He loves us (David Crowder ™)." It's physically lowering yourself as low as you can to show how great He is, how majestic He is, how awesome He is, how worthy He is. To try and comprehend a God who is so great that His presence demands that kind of response blows my mind!
I have always found myself on the more legalistic side of following Jesus. I have more knowledge than faith, more theories and stories than an actual close and dependent relationship with Jesus. I know a lot about Him, but I don't always know Him. But then I'd always meet these people who were just... kinda loopy with their Jesus stuff. They would talk about Him like He was in the room, they would dance on pews during worship, they would tell how Jesus' physical hand saved them from drowning as a child, they would earnestly pray with hands raised and tears in their eyes, or they would lie facedown for an hour or talk about these crazy healings. To be totally honest, for too much of my life I wrote these people off as nutty. The word charismatic was basically the equivalent of "very weird people."
But the truth is, I'm getting more and more tired of words like "charismatic," or "reformed." Maybe part of that comes from living in Jamaica, without the clichés and Christian crutches from back home. My faith has to stand basically on it's own, and it's pretty revealing. I'm starting to realize Jesus is great, and that I want to love Him the best I can -- if that is by dancing on pews, studying theology, or lying facedown before Him in awe. Jesus is great, so much greater than anything you or I can understand, so I'm not going to put Him in a box or slap a special name tag on Him. I'm going to try and read Scripture as it is, without some weird subtext from my culture or denominational camp.
I'm not a theologian or a Biblical scholar, and I certainly don't know "the best way to follow Jesus." But I've tried to make this facedown prayer more of a normal thing in my life. It reminds me who I am and who God is. It brings perspective back and reminds me that God is worthy of this kind of worship. He is so great that no other response makes sense but to fall facedown in the dust at His feet.
- 12:57 PM
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