Praising God: Breakin’ it down fo’ REAL Part 1: Raising Hands

So as a worship pastor, I have many more questions about worshiping and praising the Lord than I do answers:)  Sooo, I’ve  entitled this series “Praising God: Breakin’ it down fo’ REAL” as my attempt to ask myself some questions as to why I do some of the things I do to praise God, to ask God what is the most effective way to be praising Him with my body, and finally to just brainstorm and research some of the thoughts that come along.

So, I encourage the reader to partake in this series with me.  Maybe, to take to heart something that has been learned, to ask yourself the same questions, to debate some of my thoughts, or even to ask a question that you may have in relation to the blog or just in general.  The goal of this series is to possibly bring to attention things that need to change (maybe in the church and in one’s heart), to NOT do things just because it works for others or because “That’s just the way things are”, AND…HECK…to bring a more authentic offering to Jesus Christ our Lord.  These are things that I am dying to learn and equip myself to bring to my Church Body.  Here we go…

Raising Hands:  “Why do Christians raise their hand(s) when praising God?”

As I began to look through the Bible for examples of people raising their hands towards God, I found that most circumstances were directly related to people praying.  Here it turns out that back in Biblical times, lifting of hands generally signified prayer.  In fact RARELY did the lifting of hands accompany praise towards God.  Interesting.  So, where does it come from?

The perspective I think we are missing here is culturally.  In Biblical times, CULTURALLY, the lifting of hands signified prayer.  Today, from my perspective, the bowing of heads and closing eyes is what signifies prayer for our time (personally I think our culture is beginning to lean away from that being the only means of signifying prayer…sorry, off topic).  So I began to brainstorm some of the reasons why people in general raise their hands in our culture.

First thing that came to my mind:  asking a question in class.  Hmm.  Well, I get this feeling that all those people at church gathering probably don’t have a question (some 2:) due to the fact that nobody is calling on anybody:)  So, I think that’s out.

Second, I remembered this time I was assisting my Dad in moving logs for a camp fire.  He told me to hold out both of my hands so he could stack the logs in my arms.  My arms had been out-stretched to receive what my Dad wanted to give me.  Now, physically, I don’t see a lot of “logs” being placed into the arms of the praiser (apparently praiser is not a word…so I call that it is in this series), but I CAN see it being an act of accompanying the receptive heart of the praiser.

Third, (and probably my favorite) I thought of the Huskies game I just watched with some friends.  The whole time we were just sitting there watching.  But, when the Huskies did something that was amazing, the whole room jumped to their feet with their hands flailing in the air.  Now THAT, my friends, is a celebration.  Do I see flailing hands at church?  Yeah, sometimes.  Like a football game?…mmm…not really.  I CAN see jumping to our feet and flailing our hands in excitement as a means to accompany our celebratory heart towards God.

Forth, I was working at the Book Store as a Loss Prevention Officer and saw this student walking out of the store with merchandise he had not purchased.  As I approached him to detain him for shoplifting, he stepped back to swing at me and my fellow LPs and I had to wrestle this dude to the ground and he WOULD NOT give up.  Finally this Police Officer runs up, pulls out his gun and screams, “Get your hands in the air!”.  Amazingly, the student came to a complete halt, slowly stood up and placed his hands in the air…no longer fighting.  In our culture, raising our hands can signify surrender.  I CAN see the praiser praising God with his/her hands accompanying a heart of surrender towards God’s will.

Fifth, I saw this kid playing with some of his friends the other day.  He then stole a toy (or maybe it was like tape or something…sorry off topic again) from one of his friends and bolted away.  Now this child’s coordination was fair at best.  Long story short, he took a digger into the concrete.  His response:  He got up with a blood curdling scream and ran in circles seeming to look for something.  He finally discovered his Dad, ran directly to him, and raised both his hands high in the air signifying his desire to be picked up and taken care of.  I CAN see the praiser praising God with his/her hands accompanying a heart of need and desire to be taken care of towards God.

Sixth, I went climbing with a friend of mine a couple months ago.  We went all the way to the top of this mountain, and sure enough, the top of this thing had a cliff like no other.  So, what did I do?  Well, naturally I ran to the edge threw my hands in the air and screamed at the top of my lungs  (and I threw some rocks off) Not so much in an act of celebration or any of the above, but more because of the sense of freedom!  It was like my body was responding like that because it sensed radical freedom!  I CAN see the praiser praising God with arms accompanying his/her experience of God’s freedom that He brings to His people, in all kinds of things.

I think we can all see that there are many reasons people choose to raise their hands in a church gathering, but I think the challenge here is not so much choosing which is right or wrong for me, but how does my praise towards God fit with the culture I am in, what are ways it needs to be culture-clashing, and are my hands AUTHENTICALLY responding/ accompanying my heart of praise towards God?  Another thing I think we need to keep in mind is that the raising of hands does not signify praise towards God.  The heart does, and people can’t see that…that’s between you and God.  The way people respond with their bodies should only be their bodies ACCOMPANYING their heart of praise towards God.  That’s a difficult pill to swallow considering I know there are times I just lift my hands because everyone else is even though I have no desire at that time to praise God due to my selfishness.  It also, makes me think of the times I experience revelation or closeness to God when I am all by myself.  Basically, I run around the house half-naked, screaming, my heart beating like a mad man due to so much love hemorrhaging from my heart that I can’t contain myself in praise towards God.  Now, there should be a respectable means of praise towards God in a church (clothes on), but I think this leads me to my next question…  you’ll see:)

please respond