Psalm 28:2

Psalm 28:2  

Lift up your hands     

           David provides us here with a brief picture of his attitude in prayer. Here is a desperate man turning to His God with cries for mercy and for deliverance. Firstly, notice that He turns towards the Most Holy Place. We all know that this is the inner sanctum of the Tent of Meeting, the Tabernacle, later to become the Temple. Presumably David would visit the site on a daily basis and would stand before the Tent of Meeting to make his pleas. Even if he prayed at a distance, it seems that he turned to face the place where Almighty God had His throne on earth. Do we need to do this? After all, many church sites are visited by pilgrims and believers who bow to an altar and face the east as they pray. However, Jesus talked of the Holy Spirit of God being both with us and in us, and it seems that the early Christian church abandoned places and buildings and worshipped and prayed anywhere and everywhere. 

The other characteristic of David’s prayer attitude was the lifting of hands toward the Most Holy Place. Hand raising was not common in churches when I grew up, except as a formal gesture by a priest. Then the charismatic movement came and went and it became common for hands to be thrust into the air as soon as the first chord of a praise song was heard. What does hand-raising mean? Is it necessary? Why do we do it? 1 Timothy 2:8 encourages men “to pray, lifting up holy hands without anger or disputing”. Psalm 141:2 says, “May my prayer be set before you like incense; may the lifting of my hands be like the evening sacrifice.” It is quite natural for us, as human beings, to raise our hands in celebration or applause, why is it hard to raise them in prayer? Is it not an expression that says we are reaching out to someone greater? Is it not a way of showing that we are lifting up our prayers to heaven as incense or as the evening sacrifice of a lamb was presented to God, by the High Priest, before the altar? Is it not a simple way of using our bodies to be part of what is expressed by our lips? If so, then let those hand be holy hands and let’s raise them!

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