Infinitum: Three Postures of Daily Prayer That Will Transform How You Follow Jesus

For quite a few years now, our church has been gracious enough to allow my wife and I to attend the Exponential Conference in Orlando, Florida. At this years conference, Danielle Strickland was teaching a workshop with Will Chung about learning to live with unforced rhythms of grace. As part of the workshop, Danielle guided us through a prayer practice and a way of following Jesus called Infinitum. It is a simple physical posture of prayer that sets your hearts and mind towards following Jesus each day. The three postures of prayer are surrender, generosity, and mission.

The Prayer Posture of Surrender

The prayer begins with surrender. The posture is hands raised in the air in surrender to God praying, “God, you are God and I am not. I surrender all that I am and all that I have to you today. I surrender my preferences, prejudices, position, fears, finances, friends, and family to you today. You are the giver of all good things, they are yours, and I am yours today.” Whatever it is you are holding onto tightly that you are trying to manage, control, or maintain, you surrender it to God as you start your day.

The Prayer Posture of Generosity

The second posture of the prayer is fist closed in front of you and you pray, “God, I want to live an open-handed life in a closed-fisted culture. (Open your hands) What I have is not mine. I am only a steward of all that you have given me. You have given me overwhelming amounts of grace, compassion, and love and I want to be generous to others in the same way.”

The Prayer Posture of Mission

The third posture of prayer is arms crossed and it begins with a confession. "Lord, so many times I’m a spectator but today I want to live for something greater than me. (Open your arms wide) I want to embrace your kingdom mission. I want to be on mission for you to the lost, last, least, and lonely—the poor, powerless, privileged, and persecuted.”

As soon as I returned home from Florida, I started this postures of prayer practice daily. At the time of this writing, I have been at this practice for over a month now. If you struggle to show grace to others, I would encourage you to pray this way every day. However, be warned: God is going to do some crazy things in your life. He’s been doing some crazy things in my life for the last month. 

What I have learned through this practice of Infinitum is that I can't live in an attitude of daily surrender to the God of grace and not show grace to other people. I can’t pray every day and ask God to make me generous with my time, love, finances, resources, love, and compassion and then not act in grace towards other people. And I most certainly can’t ask God to open my eyes to the lost, the last, the least, and the lonely and then close my eyes to them when he brings them into my path later in the day. These prayer postures are a plea to Jesus to help me better follow his commands and to look and act more like him each day.

 

As I have been praying through these postures of prayers daily, God has been crushing my preferences, my prejudices, and my fears for weeks now. He has also been teaching me what it means to really show the love of Jesus to other people in practical ways. My next challenge is to find someone else that will practice these prayer postures with me for growth and accountability. I would challenge you to try these postures of prayer and I would love to hear how God works in your life.

Watch Danielle explain Infinitum here.