I neither close my eyes nor bow my head
Yep, that’s right. My eyes are wide open. Sometimes I’m looking forward, sometimes upward, and sometimes downward.
- Sometimes I’m reading the prayer I’ve written out. (
You can do that, y’know! )) - Sometimes I’m reading
a rote prayer . - Sometimes I’m looking at a list of prayer requests so I can make sure I include them; or I’m
journaling the prayer requests as the prayer leader lists them. - Sometimes I’m looking up relevant scriptures in my bible.
- If
I’m praying for someone who’s standing right in front of me, usually I’m looking at them. - If I’m praying as part of a street-evangelism ministry, or any other kind of ministry on a busy street, I’m watching out for my fellow ministers. You realize how often people get pickpocketed when their eyes are closed for prayer? The pickpockets consider us suckers. We kinda are.
- If I’m working with kids, you know some of ’em take advantage of the times no one’s looking. I sure did! So they catch me looking.
As for that last thing I listed: Sometimes the kids come ask me later, “Why were your eyes open? You know you’re s’posed to close your eyes.”
Says who? Well, some pastors: “Bow your heads with me. Now with every eye closed…” Usually ’cause they want to ask
And closing our eyes doesn’t come from the bible anyway. It’s western custom.
Customs are optional, y’know.
In the bible, the typical prayer posture was to lift one’s hands to the sky.
Two common stories attempt to explain where our western custom comes from:
- It’s the natural position medieval monks would take while they were at their studies, hunched over their bibles. (Assuming they could even read, much less have access to bibles.)
- Kings used to demand their subjects approach them on their knees, with bowed heads, and never look ’em in the face. Since God’s our king—and ignoring the fact he’s also our Father, and we’ve been granted the right to approach him boldly,
He 4.16 —Christians figured we oughta approach him the same way.
But ultimately it doesn’t matter where custom comes from. Traditions aren’t commands. If traditions are useful, and help facilitate worship, keep ’em. If they’re not, don’t. If being on your knees, with your head bowed, hands folded, and eyes closed, helps you pray, do it. If being facedown on the ground helps, do that. If it doesn’t, don’t.
Bible doesn’t mandate any particular posture when we pray. God’s okay with us praying in any position. Standing up, sitting down, laying face down or face up, kneeling, bowing with our head to the floor, standing on our heads. The important thing is we
And if anything is interfering with your prayer life, you realize you have to cut it out, right?
Becuase if it hinders you in any way, it means the custom is more important than actual worship. You know, like those kids who insist it’s not a real prayer unless we pray with our eyes closed. Where’d they get that idea? From adults who rebuked giggly children, “Okay kids, we can’t pray till everyone’s eyes are closed!”—and never bothered to explain they actually meant won’t pray, not can’t pray.
This is how customs wind up taking priority over worship. Something we need to watch out for whenever we teach children and newbies about prayer. So remember this.
Can’t focus?
When I was a kid, and adults told me to close my eyes when I pray, they didn’t actually know why we had to close our eyes. Nobody had ever taught ’em why.
True of a lot of traditions: We just hand ’em down without question. Never ask
Me, I ask questions. “Why do we gotta close our eyes?”
I remind you of the two stories. I didn’t actually learn ’em until my teenage years. My childhood teachers didn’t know. And when people don’t know an answer, and had never thought to investigate it themselves, sometimes they just invent an explanation. (Way easier than admitting you’re wrong.) So I was told, “You shouldn’t be looking around at other things while you pray. They’ll distract you.”
Now this explanation… kinda sucks. For three reasons.
When you close your eyes, you can see phosphenes. Those are the “stars” and colors, light spots and dark spots, moving patterns and so forth, which you can still see. Which you can even see in the dark. Our retinas are always cranking out phosphenes, even when our eyes are supposedly resting. And kids can be just as distracted by phosphenes as anything.
Second. Ever notice how these same adults who say, “Close your eyes lest you get distracted,” yet they never think to tell kids to close their eyes during all the other times they might be distracted? Like, “Close your eyes and listen to me very carefully.” In all the years I went to school, or taught school, not one teacher told us to do this. Wisely so: Tell your kids to close their eyes and listen, and they’ll fall asleep on you. Which is why I use this trick at naptime. Works great.
Lastly, the mind wanders. It just does. It’s designed to; it’s part of the brain’s creative process. If we think we can control any of the wandering by shutting our eyes, we’re fooling ourselves. Closing our eyes is a comfortable position. We sleep with our eyes closed. If you actually wanna focus… you need to get uncomfortable.
No, I’m not at all saying we should hurt ourselves. Lots of Christians have historically made that mistake. Don’t repeat it! But Christians have found that in order to focus on God, a little bit of worldly discomfort actually helps. And that’s actually why we kneel: It’s less comfortable than sitting. We bow because it’s less comfortable than kneeling. We raise our hands because it’s harder to keep our hands up than not—and arguably that’s why the folks in bible times prayed with lifted hands.
No, God doesn’t require us to put ourselves in uncomfortable postures before we pray to him. Good thing too: Knowing how people are, you realize some of us would try to make ourselves the most uncomfortable, just to show God our devotion. Like replace our comfortable undergarments with hairshirts or tightly cinched belts. Maybe whip or cut themselves. You know, like medieval Christians did—and some overzealous Christians still do.
Again: Let’s not hurt ourselves. God doesn’t want that! If you simply can’t focus, and simply raising your hands to pray doesn’t work, get a good night’s sleep, cut back on the caffeine and sugar, or speak with your doctor. Don’t go nuts!
Legalism and custom.
I repeat: There’s nothing wrong with custom when it helps us worship better. But
Hmm. How’d they know?
When we don’t kneel when they instruct us to, or raise our hands when everybody else is, or sit it out whenever the preacher says, “Everybody come down to the front of the auditorium and pray”… well, some of ’em get shouty. I’ve been to churches where the worship pastors won’t stop interjecting, “Everybody stand! Everybody lift your hands! Come on people! Make a joyful noise!” As if nagging is encouragement.
I once had a pastor give me a strict talking-to because I didn’t remove my hat during prayer. No advance warning that it was the church’s custom to uncover our heads; no signal to take off our hats; just the occasional irritated glance during prayer time, then the lecture afterward. As if I did so as an act of defiance against God, and not just as an innocent oversight. I didn’t even go to this pastor’s church! And after that talking-to, I definitely wasn’t gonna go to his church.
But that’s how important traditions have become to certain people. And since legalism, impatience, and gracelessness are signs of
Your favorite prayer postures won’t work for everyone. Neither will mine. So let’s not mandate them for one another. If they further our relationships with God, keep them; if they don’t, stop them. And if they offend others, maybe we’d best keep them to ourselves.
And maybe we’d best think about whether our prayer behavior really does further our relationships with God. Does closing our eyes truly help us pray better? Do we lift our hands to pray because it helps us focus, or because now everybody can see we’re praying? What’s our prayer posture really do for our prayer lives?
Be honest with yourself. If it helps, keep it up. If it hinders, stop it.
