Praying With Your Whole Self

Scripture — Psalm 28:1-2 (NRSV)

To you, O LORD, I call;
my rock, do not refuse to hear me,
for if you are silent to me,
I shall be like those who go down to the Pit.
Hear the voice of my supplication,
as I cry to you for help,
as I lift up my hands
toward your most holy sanctuary.

Devotion

In the church where I grew up, most people didn’t raise their hands in a worship service. Every now and then I’d see someone raising their hands while we were singing. It seemed oddly out of place in our stately Presbyterian sanctuary. We “decent and in order” folk didn’t do that sort of thing.

Yet, in the 1970s and 1980s, more and more Christians began lifting their hands in worship, even Presbyterians. This created quite a stir in some places, with church leaders frowning on such “emotionalism” while hands-raising worshipers spoke of an enhanced sense of God’s presence. I remember participating in many discussions, some quite heated, about whether this practice should be tolerated or even encouraged.

In those days, I was curious about what the Bible taught about lifting hands before God. After studying carefully, I was surprised to find that this practice was common and commended. Psalm 134:2, for example, reads, “Lift up holy hands to the holy place, and bless the LORD.” In 1 Timothy 2:8, Paul writes that “men should pray, lifting up holy hands without anger or argument.” I never before realized that such things could be found in the Bible.

But my biblical investigation revealed that raising hands in prayer, a common posture for Jews in biblical times, was not just a way of expressing praise to God. In fact, lifting one’s hands was often associated with neediness and supplication. That’s the case in Psalm 28:2, where David lifts his hands as he cries out to the Lord for mercy.

There are times in our lives when we are so desperate for God’s help that we might lift our hands like a child needing her mother’s help. The physical gesture isn’t required, of course. But, like kneeling or bowing our heads, raising our hands in prayer to God might just open our hearts to receive more of God‘s grace.

In the church where I worship now, our pastor regularly invites us to open our hands before the Lord at the end of each service. He encourages us to think of this as if we are coming before the Lord for a gift. Then, he blesses us in God’s name. The main point, however, is not really what we’re doing with our hands, but what’s happening in our hearts. With open hands, we yearn for God’s help. We ache for God’s gracious intervention. We need God’s mercy and cry out for God to hear us and save us. We pray like this when our personal lives are troubled. But we are also free to cry out for mercy when our work is messy, or when we have so much of it that we feel like we’re drowning, or when we’re trying to sort out our lives in retirement.

In the season of Lent, Psalm 28 reminds us that we can be free and unguarded as we cry out to God, just like David. Sometimes we are like little children as they lift up their hands to a parent for help. But no matter what we do with our bodies when we pray, Psalm 28:1 encourages us to open our hearts more fully to God: “To you, O LORD, I call; my rock, do not refuse to hear me.” Saying this, we pray, not just with our minds and mouths, and not just with our lifted hands, but with our whole selves.

Find all Life for Leaders devotions here. Explore what the Bible has to say about work at the High Calling archive, hosted by the unique website of our partners, the Theology of Work Project. Reflection on today’s Life for Leaders theme can be found here: Lift Up Holy Hands and Praise the Lord!.