Lifting Holy Hands

“Therefore, it is my wish that when the men pray, no matter where, they should lift up hands that are holy — they should not become angry or get into arguments.” 1 Timothy 2:8

People often struggle with knowing God’s will. You can attend seminars to discover the secrets of finding God’s guidance. Book after book is written to help answer the question, “What does God want from my life?”

The longer I have followed Jesus, the more I am convinced His commands boil down to a handful only. He said the first command is to love God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength; and the second, just like the first, is to love our neighbor as ourselves. Yet many people want to know, “Where does God want me to live?” “What house does He want me to buy?” “Who should I marry?” The questions can go on and on, of course. And, God is interested in all of our concerns, and we can gain much direction from the principles in Scripture.

What would happen if followers of Jesus started their thinking about God’s will with the first two most important things on God’s mind. So, wondering about His guidance, we would ask, “Am I loving Him first? And, if I am, how am I doing that?” If we begin by thinking that devotion to God is His priority, and put that love into action, the residual questions about where I live or what job I have lose their importance. And, if God wants to guide us to do something or go somewhere specific, He is much more likely to have our attention when we are honoring Him first of all.

So Paul encourages men to pray with holy hands lifted up. We can learn a great deal from the ancient church about the practice of prayer. In some ways the post-modern society is breaking free from the old views that action is always better than contemplation. My hope is the western church will also find that freedom. We must begin with prayer. We must learn the value of praying together.

Many of us have been put off by people who wear their Christianity like high-beams. They blind people they approach just like a vehicle at night, and lose their ability to win people by the simplicity of their obedience to Christ. We know what they believe by the bumper stickers they sport.

Yet Jesus, who was the absolute glory of the Father, rarely blinded those who came in contact with Him. I think it is absolutely amazing that the brightness of His glory “leaked out” only a couple of times during His ministry. Once, with three of His followers, they were on a hill praying. All at once it was as if all the glory inside Jesus exploded into view and He shone brighter than the sun in view of them. Yet, the next day, all of them were walking the dusty hills of Judea, humans beings in the flesh. Jesus was very circumspect about unleashing the full extent of His glory.

Jesus had the glory of the Father by His very nature, but He also depended on constant prayer and communion with God for everything He did. He is constantly sneaking away at night or early in the morning to find a place to pray. For Him, everything He did was tied to those private moments with His heavenly Father.

So we are encouraged to pray with holy hands lifted up. This is a position of surrender. Our hands lifted up toward heaven, we leave ourselves completely exposed. This should be a picture of our inner self before God. We should never think to protect ourself from exposure to Him, nor try to hide the corners of our soul. Lifting our hands, we open up like new blooms before the sun, and allow Father God full access to our hearts. We bask in the love He shares with all who will lift up “holy” hands.

We are not asked to lift up “perfect” hands, as if we only come to God once we have the whole religious bit figured out and our sinning is down below some miniscule measurement. “Holy” means “set apart”. We lift up hands that have been set apart for the Father’s use first, which means those hands (and lips, and thoughts) have been kept from anger and argumentation.

Father God will not hear a single word from one who has berated another. It does not matter if a person holds the world’s record for longest continual prayer if that person is carrying on a constant argumentative life. An angry life is one whose hands have been used for self, not for the goodness of God. An argumentative person is more concerned with being right than being “righteous”.

Many times in my own life, shortly after starting to pray, God brings immediately to mind some short word or belittling way I have treated someone. He never lets up on breaking down the barrier between “spiritual” and well, everything else in life. We lift up hands in prayer, but those hands need to be participating in this world without purposeful anger or constant argument. Lay down the desire to be right, and raise your hands in humble surrender to the God who wants to transform us all by His love in Christ.