My daughters loved playing Barbie® dolls when they were little. They even had a “Barbie room” made from a closet in an upstairs room that had a slanted roof making it a perfect place to sit and play for hours. The only problem with some of those dolls was that their knees didn’t bend. So when you would go to sit them in the cool Barbie car, their legs were straight out! If you wanted them to sit at the table to eat, they sat with their legs straight out! We wanted their knees to bend like humans!
When we were in marching band in high school, we were told if we had to stand for long periods of time in one position, to bend our knees a little to keep ourself from getting to stiff and tensing every muscle in our body and eventually even passing out.
When you play golf, you learn the technique of bending your knees or bending one knee and when and how far! When standing at home plate preparing to swing a bat, you learn how deep to bend your knees. When all “geared” up BEHIND home plate, you have to get used to bending your knees.
It’s amazing how much we bend our knees. Obviously, we have to bend them when we sit down, when we walk up steps, when we rare back to kick a soccer ball, when we run, walk and pray.
Yes… pray. I think that is the action we should be bending our knees for the most. Over time arthritis sets in our knees; people tear the muscles and tendons in their knees and it may be hard to bend. The act of bending our knees to pray is a wonderful act of worship but if you can’t physically do that, then bend your neck down or bend your arms up or bend your eyelids closed.
However you choose to BEND your body, I think it’s time we bend to pray! Thursday is National Day of Prayer. If you don’t usually bend in prayer, I encourage you to bend down on Thursday and pray for our world, our country, our state, our county, our city, our school, our family, our children, ourselves. I hope to see you……around the bend!