Teen - Bending the Knee

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DOCTRINE FOR THE YOUNG

BENDING THE KNEE

by the Rev. Morley D. Rich

Oh come, let us worship and bow down;
Let us kneel before the Lord our Maker.
For He is our God,
And we are the people of His pasture,
And the sheep of His hand.
Psalm 95:6-7

We seldom think about how important our knees are to us, of how many things they help us to do - walking and running, to name two of the most important. When we study the human body, we may be greatly impressed with the wonder of their construction and how intricately and perfectly the various nerves, muscles, and joints are put together to make our bendings and turnings possible.

For a simple and easy way to see their importance, try walking stiff-legged, without bending or turning your knees in the least. Pretty hard, isn't it? And it is almost impossible to run in that way. Also, if you keep at it for any length of time, you find your upper legs and hips becoming very tired and sore, since they and their joints have to do all the work.

When we stop and think about it, there are a number of other things our knees enable us to do in our work and play. Walking and running are two. But a third one, which is just as important, is their use in worshipping the Lord, as in kneeling down to pray to Him. Have you ever wondered why we do this, why we kneel to do this?

In olden times, people "bent the knee" to their kings. This was a sign of their respect for the king and of their willingness to follow and obey him. And from this ancient custom came also the practice of kneeling in prayer to our Lord, who is the King of kings.

But there is a much deeper reason for kneeling than the ancient custom. For this custom came from a thing of the spirit. The Lord tells us that bending the knee is a natural sign of holy fear, and so of humiliation and adoration or worship. Let us think of this in more common words.

Perhaps at some time you have had a strong feeling when looking at a beautiful scene in nature, or perhaps in listening to a moving lesson from the Word; maybe you even have had such a strong feeling when you looked at the wondrous way in which the nerves, muscles, and parts of the knee have been put together and work together. Such a feeling may have been so strong that you felt that all you wanted to do was to fall on your knees and worship the Lord. The kneeling then became a natural expression of your spirit, of the feeling and desire that you have. It is a perfect sign of your feeling and worship of the Lord.

At such times, the words of prayer which you then say, especially if they are the Lord's prayer, also perfectly correspond to your inner mind or spirit. You feel humble and wish to humble yourself before the Lord. You pray for your Heavenly Father's love so that He may help you to put away your faults and do better. You are telling the Lord that you really do want to obey His commandments. You are suiting your words to your action of kneeling, and your action to your feeling and thought.

You might say that many times you kneel down without feeling that way, and without having thought about it beforehand. Just the same, the feeling may happen afterwards. This is another wonderful thing that can happen to us when we kneel to pray.

For, when you kneel, you feel that bending in your knees. This may remind you of some of the things you have thought and felt in worship before. Then something of the same feelings of awe, humbleness, and worship will come back to you - and with no effort from you except the simple one of kneeling. The Lord does this for you, from His love for you.

These are the reasons why even the Lord Himself, while He was on earth, knelt down to pray - as an example to us. And it is why He invited us in the same words that are often used by ministers: "O come, let us worship and bow down; let us kneel before the Lord our Maker" (Psalm 95:6).

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