I raise my hands against Gnosticism

I was raised in a Presbyterian church.  It has been nicknamed the "frozen chosen" because during worship/hymns no one moves, wiggles, or even claps.  I kid you not when I say that my dad and I used to be the rebels who would sway to the hymns in the front row.

Then I came to college and joined Chi Alpha.  The music was contemporary with a worship band and everything.  And people raised their hands.  It took me a while to stop judging and to accept that there may actually be sincerity in this gesture.  But it wasn't for me.  Swaying was as far as I'd go.

During fall my junior year God began a process of leading me into raising my hands.  At first it was only in my prayer times as a symbol of reaching out to God.  Then at a conference I felt prompted by God to hold my hands out as a sign of receiving/yearning to receive from the Lord.  During DCF I began to hold my hands at my side as symbolic of Holy Spirit flowing over me.  Now in worship I raise my hands over my head and sometimes I dance like an idiot.

For a lot of us this can be a difficult process.  Somewhere along the way American Christianity picked up (perhaps from the Puritans with their belt buckles on every article of clothing) this Gnostic idea that our bodies are evil.

Our bodies are not evil, we are not merely waiting for death so that we can shed these earth-suits, but we are anticipating our resurrection bodies.  After His resurrection Jesus had a physical body.  In Heaven we will have physical bodies.  It's not about discarding the physical, but utilizing it.

There is this connection within my self, body and soul.  It's the reason why fasting in scripture is a physical fasting of food.  It's the reason why in Communion there is a tangible partaking of the elements.  There are greater things at work than mere symbols.

Through this progression of hand movements God has taught me the power of using my physical body to worship God.  My mind alone is not sufficient because I am not merely mind.  My emotions are not sufficient because I am not only emotions.  Nor is just raising my hands the point.  The point is to engage and involve all of me in worship.  So I dance like an idiot sometimes.