Prayer

Prayer is an active effort to communicate with a deity or spirit either to offer praise, to make a request, seek guidance, confess sins, or simply to express one's thoughts and emotions. The words of the prayer may either be a set hymn or incantation, or a spontaneous utterance in the praying person's own words.

How did Jesus pray?

35[1] And rising very early in the morning, while it was still dark, he departed and went out to a desolate place, and[2] there he prayed.

Forms of prayer

The great spiritual traditions offer a wide variety of devotional acts. There are morning and evening prayers, graces said over meals, and reverent physical gestures.

Here are a few examples of various types of physical gestures during prayer:

• Christians pray in various ways:
  • Some Christians bow their heads and fold their hands
  • Some Christians kneel
  • Some Christians sway their bodies
  • Some Christians hold their heads and palms upward
• Native Americans dance
• Sufis whirl
• Hindus chant
• Orthodox Jews sway their bodies back and forth
• Quakers keep silent
• Muslims pray in various ways:
  • standing hands raised,
  • Standing with hands folded over chest,
  • Prostrated on the ground, etc.

More...

plus "How did Jesus Pray?" by Mark Driscoll