Ready to Receive

Ready to receive.  Have you ever heard anyone say, “please lift me up in prayer” or “please lift my name up in prayer”?  Prayer is a lifting up of the soul to God (Psalm 25:1).  In our reading today, Jeremiah (likely the writer of Lamentations), records, “Let us lift up our hearts and our hands to God in heaven: “We have sinned and rebelled; you have not forgiven.” (Lamentations 3:41).  Both the heart and the hands are expressed as being lifted up before the Lord.  One commentator stated that lifting up both the heart and then hands before God in prayer is the antidote to hypocrisy.  Lifting up the hands was a common gesture used in prayer. Matthew Henry commentates that “it signifies our requesting mercy from him and our readiness to receive that mercy”.  The reason for lifting up both heart and hands was because of their sin against God.  In this case, it was not a time of rejoicing.  It was a time of desperate need because of their rebellion against God and they had yet to receive the forgiveness from God.  God is the only source for that forgiveness, so we must learn to wait upon the Lord, ready to receive it.