Praise and Worship

So! My first blog. My first post.

I decided to make this first post be about a topic that is dear to me: worship, praise; what do they mean? I could just go to an English dictionary and just paste the definition and that'd be that. But I think it might be just a bit more meaningful (to me anyway) to go what it means in my Biblical heritage. To keep it simple, we'll just go into these two Hebrew words.

'Worship' (Hebrew shachah) means: "to depress, that is, prostrate (especially reflexively in homage to royalty or God)". [Strong's]

I like that. Worship means I know You're great, awesome, more than I can believe. The weight of Your glory, Your being, brings me to my knees. The core of worship is humbly accepting who you are before the Almighty. 

And then, there's 'praise'. In Hebrew, the word (yadah) has its root in another Hebrew word (yod) that means 'hand'. It's a very interesting word. It literally means "to (that is to hold out) use the hand". It can mean 'to throw', but specifically to this context, it means "to revere or worship (with extended hands)". [Strong's]

Praise is reaching. To be honest, I was surprised to find that the word for praise had this meaning. When I lift hands in prayer, it's out of the idea that my God is so wonderful, I just want to reach out to Him, lift Him high. Lifting hands became almost a metonymy in Biblical Hebrew for petition to God (Lamentations 2:19). Praise says I need You.

It is with that foundation that I start this blog. Exploring worship and praise.

In the name of Jesus my Messiah, I pray lives are blessed and that by this project people (myself included) are drawn closer to the Eternal Father.
Amen.

~Ken