“This is the body like no other that my life has shaped. I live here. This is my soul’s address,” says Barbara Brown Taylor in An Altar in the World. Since I live inside a body, I often involve that body in expressing my heart prayers. My inner world is enlarged as my body communicates for my soul through voice and motion. Here are a few examples of letting your body speak for your soul.
Sing your prayer
Psalms is the prayer book of the Old Testament. Originally written as prayers to be sung, this book continues to give us wonderful lyrics for singing our prayers. Many of our hymns and worship choruses are right out of the book of Psalm. If musicians express their prayers through music, why can’t we? Try singing one of your favorite hymns or choruses his week to express your heart in prayer.
Lift your hands in prayer
Lifting hands is the universal sign of surrender. When we do so in prayer, we are physically expressing our heart surrender to God (See Lamentations 3:40–42 and 1 Timothy 2:8).
Bow down or kneel in prayer
Matthew 20:20–24 records the story of a mother kneeling before the Lord to request a favor for her sons. Her arrogant request was not granted—in fact, it got a lot of negative reaction from those standing by, but her posture shows an attitude of humility. She was obeying Psalm 95:6, even though her motives may have been too “motherly.”
Dance your prayer
One of the most moving expressions of prayer for me happens when I observe or participate in dance as a form of prayer. Getting past my self-consciousness to pour my heart out before the Lord isn’t easy, but I find that worship and intercession freely flows, whether in private or in public, when I dance (Psalm 149:3).
How do you engage your body in prayer, and how does what you do enrich your faith walk?
In Him together, Susan Gaddis
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