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.
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"How did Jesus Pray?" by Mark Driscoll
