Everything we know about prayer is wrong!

     I have been blessed to be surrounded by Christ-followers my entire life.  I decided to become a Christ-follower myself at 5 years old.  I will soon be 37 years old.  So after following Christ for 30 plus years, I am still amazed at the glaringly obvious things I and my fellow Christ-followers have missed in the teachings of Jesus!
     Let's take one of the most basic things that most "Christians" do - Praying over our meals.  We typically bow our heads and ask God's blessing over our food.  Nothing wrong with that, right?
     Well, I have always been "that kid" who had to drive both my parents and my teachers crazy by asking that annoying question that no adult wants to constantly hear, "WHY?"
     Why do we bow our heads and ask God's blessing over our food?  Probably because we saw our parents do this, because they saw their parents do this and so on.
     But I was recently reading in Matthew 14:19 "Jesus took the five loaves and two fish, lifted his face to heaven in prayer, blessed, broke, and gave the bread to the disciples."  It is fascinating to me that Jesus takes the exact opposite posture in prayer that we do.  He lifts his face to heaven, instead of bowing his head.
     I began to ponder what the posture of lifting your face versus bowing your head communicates.  Bowing your head could communicate surrender or humility, but it also could communicate guilt and shame.  Once we repent of our sins and establish relationship with Jesus as our LORD, the Bible says we can now come "boldly to the throne of grace!"  As Christ-followers we can come to God the father as Jesus did, as a son!  If my children come to me with their face down, I suspect they are guilty of something.  We don't have to come to God as lowly peasants, but as loved an accepted children.
     I also love the fact that Jesus by lifting his face to heaven was ignoring the distractions of his current situation and reconnecting with his father.  By lifting his face to heaven he was taking his eyes of the temporary and looking to the seat of order of all things eternal.  He knew that food was a temporary thing but his relationship with the Father was eternal.
     Also this word "blessed" in the text we take to mean that we ask God to bless our food, but the Jewish tradition was for the head of the household to "bless" or give thanks to God for the food.  By bowing our heads we signify our insufficiencies, but by looking to heaven we signify God's abundance.  Here is an example of a Jewish food "blessing": "Blessed art Thou, LORD our God, King of the universe, who by his word brings about all things!"
     I challenge you to try this.  Begin looking to heaven and thanking God for his blessings!