For at least eighteen hundred years the pastors or priests of many Christian churches have called to their people attending worship services: “Lift up your hearts,” to hear the response, “We lift them up to the Lord!” It is a call to worship that has been used in almost every denomination, and a response that says “I know how to ‘lift up my heart!’” I heard this call as a child and wondered what it really meant. I didn’t know how to command my heart, but it seemed like a very good thing to do. It was better than “Pay attention!”, for it focused on the Lord, and I did want to know Him better.

This call implies a unity among the people and a common focus on our God; it resounds like a royal command before the actual appearance of a King. It It also appears in Lamentations 3:41. Let us lift up our hearts and our hands and say ‘we have sinned and rebelled.’ It suggests simply that raising our hearts and our hands moves us into a position of penitence that gets God’s attention; but in church it never seemed penitential to me. Rather, it seemed like a call to put aside other concerns and face the One to whom we have come. It meant leaving behind cynicism, doubt, anxiety, and fear.

When my daughter was only four years old and taking a nap, I was in the shower when she woke up. She couldn’t find me in the house, and so she walked outside and crossed the street to knock on our neighbor’s front door. She told the neighbor, “My mommy’ is gone and I don’t know where she is.” Judi, my neighbor, looked across the street and saw my car in the driveway, and she said, “I’m sure she’s in your house, honey, If you go home, I’m sure you’ll find her.” Stephanie turned around and walked back across the street. She knelt on the sidewalk to the house and lifted her heart to God. She prayed that she would find me in the house, and by the time she entered, I was out of the shower and getting dressed. She walked into my room and ran to me. I had thought that she was still asleep in her room.

“Lift up your hearts” is a call that requires nothing of us but putting down our burdens so that we may lift our hearts. Jesus said, “Come unto me, all you who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” (Matthew 11:28) It was a call to individuals to “lift up your hearts.” Lifting up our hearts makes room for the wonders of the Holy Spirit to enter and provide that “rest”, and all the benefits of God’s Grace toward His people.

Love in Him,

Prue