When I first thought about offering our hands to God, I thought that we’d talk about service.

We offer our hands to God by serving other people. That’s something that works in our way of thinking-hands and service.

But when I actually looked at how the bible used the word “hands”, my plans had to change. Overwhelmingly, the bible shows people using their hands when they pray and when they praise God.

The passage we read together is typical of many in the Psalms-“I will lift up my hands as I call upon your name.” Hands are used to bless, used as people pray for each other. Paul tells Timothy that holy people should lift up holy hands in prayer. It’s everywhere!

It surprised me. And then I was surprised that it surprised me!

I’m one of those people who you can make shut up simply by tying my hands together. I can’t seem to talk without waving them around or gesturing or something. I’ll be on the phone with somebody and catch myself holding the phone with my shoulder so that I can make hand movements! It’s embarrassing!

We use our hands every day in so many ways.

What are some of the things that come to mind? How do you and I use our hands to communicate every day? [ASK-shaking hands, high fives, chest pounding, holding hands, pointing, etc.]

I remember noticing something years ago, when our two oldest girls were quite young. When I would come home, I responded differently to Natalie and Hayley. With one of them, my natural response was to talk with her, ask her questions about her day. With the other one, without even thinking, I would tackle her, or pick her up, or hug her, or throw her up on my shoulders.

One of my daughters receives love through words, one through touch. My hands communicate my love best to one of my daughters.

If God created people differently, if God created us so that we can express love with our hands…

…is it too much of a stretch to think that we might use our hands to express our love to God? There are all sorts of ways that the Church, that different traditions in the Christian church, have used hands in spiritual ways.

What are some of them you can think of? What practices have developed with our hands that serve to communicate something to God or about God? [ASK-crossing ourselves, folding hands in prayer, laying hands on others as we pray, etc.]

One of the things I suppose we need to acknowledge today is that our church, and Friends churches in general, aren’t very used to expressive use of the hands in worship.

What do you think are some of the reasons for that? Why don’t we, as a normal practice, use a lot of movement of our hands in worship? [ASK-maybe follow up with, what fears do we have about being expressive?]

I want to be really clear about something.

Today is about freedom.

This isn’t about saying, “Spiritual and biblical people use their hands in praise and in prayer.” It’s about giving ourselves the freedom to experience God with our whole body.

Like my daughters, some of us will really embrace offering our hands to God in prayer and in praise. Others find it easier to do so in words. Today, we want to take a look at the different ways to offer our hands in worship, and do that for a couple of reasons.

We want to say, out loud, that no one needs to be afraid or inhibited about responding to God with hands or movement. We’re not just spiritual people or intellectual people; we’re also physical people, and God loves every part of us! We can feel free to use our bodies to worship God.

We also want to acknowledge the truth that if we haven’t grown up using our hands much in worship, we might not even know if it’s meaningful or not. We might need to practice a little bit to really learn to worship with our bodies.

[pull out a baseball]

I love playing baseball.

In high school, I really wanted to play varsity ball, and I worked hard at it. As a freshman, I was pretty little and not very strong. In particular, my arm wasn’t very strong and I couldn’t throw as far or as fast as most of the other guys.

My coach told me that I could make up for that if I could practice getting the ball from my glove to my throwing hand more quickly. If I practiced until I was faster than everybody else at getting the ball from my glove to my throwing hand, my weaker arm wouldn’t show as much.

So at night, I’d lay in my bed, tossing the ball into the air, catching it with my left hand, and switching it to my right. Over, and over, and over again. I trained my hand to get faster. On the field, I didn’t even have to think about it, but it made a big difference.

[pull out a keyboard]

I spend a lot of time each week with one of these.

I communicate with people by e-mail, I write my thoughts for Sunday, and for lots of other things. I’ve practiced typing so much that I think I actually think better now with my hands on a keyboard.

This last week, I was without my computer and had to actually write on a sheet of paper! It was AWFUL! I couldn’t even think!

Practice with our hands leads to something better, something deeper than we had before. Think about playing a musical instrument, or carving wood, or painting a picture. All of those things can communicate powerfully, but they all take practice.

Anybody who’s played piano has had to practice scales. Anybody who’s tried to be an artist has practiced shading and perspective.

And, when it comes to offering our hands to God in worship, we may need to practice for awhile before it becomes a meaningful worship activity.

There are many beautiful things that could develop in us, things we don’t even yet imagine, if we give ourselves the freedom to practice using our hands in worship.

And I’m not just talking about Sunday morning. In fact, the best place to practice offering our hands might be on our own, by ourselves.

Listen to how some people in our church use their hands and imagine their bodies being used in worship. Perhaps one will trigger an idea that you may want to practice this week.

Lyle Wheeler

When Janet and I attended The Journey at Newberg Friends we ended the session dancing together with our arms around each other with God, who brought us together over 55 years ago, enfolding us in His arms. That was special since we are old fashion Quakers that would never dance!

I have imagined seeing the Father face to face but the only thing I think I could do would be to fall at His feet, grasping them and feel His hands of blessing on my head.

Ginny Birky

I will share my most common image of God and me connecting.  It comes from Psalms 139:10.  I picture myself in the palm of God’s hand.  He is holding me, touching me, encircling me, supporting me, and giving me security and calmness in the midst of whatever else I might feel at the time.

I know why that is my image.  When my mother was dying of cancer, she planned her funeral.  The scripture passage to be read was Psalms 139, a much-highlighted chapter in her Bible, which I now have.  Someone in the family drew a sketch of a big hand on the front cover of the bulletin for her service.  Since that time, it is an image that is meaningful to me.

A few weeks ago I had to have an MRI.  Laying in the confined pounding environment, I envisioned myself in that big palm of God’s hand and it was most comforting and calming to know that he was supporting me and holding me securely.

Today, we want to have the freedom to experiment with our hands.

We want to have the freedom to practice, to try some things out. “Freedom” means that you don’t have to do anything at all if you don’t want to. “Freedom” means you can try something and not worry about “doing it right.”

We, together, want to follow the bible’s example, and offer our hands to God in prayer and praise. We’ll practice throughout the service in several ways, with clapping, with personal prayer, with corporate prayer, with hand movements while singing.

Join in or just watch as you wish. But consider that many things we do with our hands require time and energy devoted in practice.

Years ago, I remember Marcille Crandall teaching our church a way to pray with out hands.

For those who want to join the experiment, let’s try this. Hold your hands out, and imagine holding heavy weights. Imagine your hands weighed down with all the worries, all the stresses you carry around. What is it that you are carrying, that is weighing you down?

Now, let’s release them. Let them go. Release every single one of them to God.

Now we turn our hands over, palms up. We receive from God whatever he wants to give us. Invite God to give you exactly what you need today. Use your hands as a reminder to receive from God.