“Lift up your hands in the sanctuary. And bless the Lord” (Ps. 134:2 NKJ).
Part One
Photographers claim that hands are the hardest things to deal with when posing people for pictures. It seems that no one knows quite what to do with them once they become conscious of them.
The photographer taking the family portrait of Abraham Lincoln and his household is reported to have spent close to an hour arranging and rearranging the president’s hands.
If you seem nervous and ill-at-ease in a crowd of people or in front of an audience, invariably your hands will register your nervousness. I believe some of the awkwardness we have with our hands is due to a lack of knowledge. We can discover from the Word of God how our hands can be used for spiritual blessing.
Our hands were not given to us merely to improve our manual dexterity; nor are they simply useless appendages to hang awkwardly at our side like two ham hocks. They were designed by our Creator to be instruments of worship and channels of blessing; they are divinely chosen means for extending the ministry of Jesus Christ.
The psalmist tells us to lift up our hands in the sanctuary and bless the Lord. Raised hands can actually be a means of blessing our heavenly Father. We usually think of blessing the Lord as part of our vocal expression.
We worship Him with praise and thanksgiving. But we can also worship Him with our uplifted hands. Job says our hands are clean from sin (Job 17:9). The Apostle Paul exhorts us to lift up holy hands (1 Tim. 2:8). With our hearts we adore the Lord, and with our hands we bless the Lord.
Excerpt permission granted by Harrison House Publishers