A Long Obedience in the Same Direction: Discipleship in an Instant Society (The IVP Signature Collection)

by Eugene H. Peterson

We are invited to bless the Lord; we are commanded to bless the Lord. And then someone says, “But I don’t feel like it. And I won’t be a hypocrite. I can’t bless God if I don’t feel like blessing God. It wouldn’t be honest.” The biblical response to that is “Lift up your praising hands to the Holy Place, and bless GOD!” You can lift up your hands regardless of how you feel; it is a simple motor movement. You may not be able to command your heart, but you can command your arms. Lift your arms in blessing; just maybe your heart will get the message and be lifted up also in praise. We are psychosomatic beings; body and spirit are intricately interrelated. Go through the motions of blessing God and your spirit will pick up the cue and follow along. “For why do men lift their hands when they pray? Is it not that their hearts may be raised at the same time to God?”8 It isn’t quite the same thing, and there are many differences in detail, but there is a broad similarity between the directions in the psalm and the contemporary movement known as “behavior modification”—which in a rough-and-ready way means that you can act yourself into a new way of being. Find the right things to do, practice the actions, and other things will follow. “Lift up your praising hands to the Holy Place, and bless GOD.” Act your gratitude; pantomime your thanks; you will become that which you do.