“I’ll stand with arms high and heart abandoned…”Â
When we typically see these lyrics on the screen at church and when we sing them, what do we do? We do exactly what the words are saying. We stand and raise our arms high. And with many other worship songs, we often do the same thing. Are we doing it because we genuinely desire to lift our hands, or is that the part of the song when we are supposed to raise our hands because the lyrics say we need to?
For the latter, I DO NOT lift my hands in worship. I do not want to sit in the congregation and raise my hands just because the lyrics say so.  And in my own life and worship experience, I cannot tell you how many times I have been singing in worship and thrown my hands up when I read those words on the screen. This is something that we all have and will struggle with in the context of worship. So with that being said, reasons that I do not lift my hands in worship include: Because the lyrics say so, or because everyone around me is raising their hands, or even for the occasional early morning stretch. I want to get rid of those altogether, and create reasons why we should raise our hands in worship.
If you can think back to your childhood or if you have been blessed to have children of your own, you can remember the young child running to their daddy or mommy, lifting up their hands towards their loved one, and repeating, “Hold me, hold me!” It is something that I will never forget with my father. I would come running to him, asking him to hold me. I did that more than I probably should have, and later in my years than I should have. But there is something special that comes with lifting your hands up to the one that cares so much for you. And that is the attitude I want to keep when worshiping my Wonderful Savior. In worship, I am lifting and raising my hands to my Eternal Daddy saying, “Hold me, hold me.” Â
And, if you had any older siblings growing up, you and I both know how it feels to be picked on. I grew up with three older siblings, which included two older brothers and the oldest sibling being my sister. My two brothers would use me for any crazy idea or project that they didn’t want to try out first. But their favorite role of being an older brother was the opportunity to have an air-soft gun war. Of course, it would be the both of them against me and one of my friends, and we would always lose. At that point of inevitable defeat, we threw up our hands and we surrendered. We had our whole body showing as a target and our hands were raised high, and at that point we were very vulnerable. It was at that time when we realized that we can’t get out of this mess on our own, and we had to surrender. When we lift our hands in worship, we are surrendering everything we have to God, and He will never take advantage of that vulnerability like an older sibling would, but we are ultimately saying to Him that we give everything we are to Him. We realize that nothing we do can save ourselves or get ourselves out of the mess we are in. We realize we are in need of a Savior, and we surrender all we are to Him.
Let’s challenge ourselves to genuinely “…stand with arms high and heart abandoned,” rather than doing it because the lyrics tell us to. (or for the occasional stretch 🙂 )Â
“I call to you, Lord, come quickly to me; hear me when I call to you. May my prayer be set before you like incense; may the lifting up of my hands be like the evening sacrifice.” (Psalm 141:1-2)
Ruined For Glory 