Verse of the Day for December 5

O clap your hands, all ye people. Hands are a strange place for worship to start. Not the mind, not even the heart, but palms meeting palms, loud enough to hear.

And it is addressed to all people, not only Israel. Nations who had their own gods are told to applaud this one, because he is a great King over all the earth. The word terrible in verse two means awe, the kind that stops you in the middle of a sentence.

Ordinary days do not usually feel like coronations. A Tuesday is laundry, a school run, a queue at the bank. Nothing about it seems to call for clapping.

But the psalm does not ask whether the day is special. It asks whether the King is. If he is great over all the earth, he is great over the bank queue too, and that is reason enough for the body to join in.

Try it, even quietly. In the car before you get out, or at the market stall while the trader counts your change, give thanks with your hands as well as your lips. The body sometimes teaches the heart what it has forgotten.

Joy does not wait for an occasion when the King is always on the throne.

Let your hands lead your heart today.