“People don’t look up.”
My oldest brother stated it with a shrug, like it’s just one of those unfortunate things about life.
We were in a restaurant with hundreds, maybe thousands, of dollar bills pegged to the ceiling. Or maybe it was toothpicks. I’m not entirely sure now. Frankly, he’s said it more than once in our forty-year relationship and I tend to lose track.
I usually just nod in agreement, letting the truth of it roll over me without much application. But when I read Jeremiah 48 and 49 recently, his words resurfaced in my memory.
That section of Jeremiah details the coming destruction of the nations surrounding Jerusalem at that time. The Babylonian army has the city in its sights, having already hauled away Zedekiah and the nobles to exile. A small, desperate remnant remains and they made a pretense of reaching out to God for help and direction about what to do now.
The historical and prophetic accounts reveal that God’s people had turned to every other option for help — idol worship, building up armies, fleeing to Egypt, seeking refuge and support from many of the surrounding nations. Every time they asked God for help, His answer was pretty much the same: turn to me, forsake your idols, repent of your sins. Know me, love me, obey me, for I AM your God.
But they continued to stubbornly refuse because they didn’t want to give up their guilty pleasures. Instead of running to God, they ran to everyone else.
People don’t look up.
We’re still doing that. Or not doing that, to be more clear.
How often do we scurry around in messes of our own making looking for ways to fix things? How often is prayer our last resort instead of our first?
Do you like how I used “we” there? Technically, that’s considered first person-plural point of view. I like to think of it as the “I have this friend” point of view. It’s the voice we use when we don’t want to own the truth about ourselves.
So let me push that out of the way and get personal. I have faced times in my life where I needed God’s help and knew in order to bring myself into alignment with His will, I needed to make some changes I didn’t want to make.
So I avoided Him.
I got creative and tried to find my own way through my obstacles. I stopped praying. I told myself I was on my own and defiantly plowed ahead under the strength of my own intellect, drive and … stubbornness.
I resorted to superficial relationships to find a sense of belonging that could only come from bringing myself back into alignment with God.
I told myself I could find fellowship and acceptance in bars instead of humbling myself in the doorway of a church where other flawed people would hold me accountable to a standard I resented.
I told myself I could find relaxation in a wine glass instead of seeking Spirit-filled joy.
And I resorted to a ridiculous number of diets and get-thin-quick schemes to try to solve the fact I was eating to feel better, when the reason I felt like crap had nothing at all to do with my diet.
In all of those cases, I found doors slammed in my face again and again. The acceptance I was looking for always ended in rejection. The happy I wanted ended in hangover. The skinny I was looking for ended in fat(ter). “All the things” fell short of what it was I wanted and needed.
God was telling me to look up. He was slamming all the doors I had pried open so I’d have no choice but look to Him instead.
God does not want to be our God of last resort, our easy button. He loves us, and calls us to know Him and love Him and follow Him with undivided loyalty. When we do that, our help becomes so very clear.
When we look to Him, several things happen. First, we stop looking at our obstacles. Second, we stop looking at ourselves. Third, we begin to see Him as He is — our center, our stable foundation, our standard. Fourth, He reveals the roadmap we’re supposed to follow.
Have you ever noticed that you tend to head in the direction you’re looking? When I was first learning to drive, I was chastised more than once for not keeping the car in my own lane because I’d seen something on the side of the road and inadvertently started driving toward it. (I hope that’s not just me.)
We are, as humans, incredibly influenced by whatever we’re focused on: the rooms we’re in, the information we take in, the people we surround ourselves with physically and virtually. To lift ourselves out of the mire and get any kind of right perspective, we need to look up to God who is outside the fray, who knows the end from the beginning, who sees us and everything around us as it really is.
When my nose had gotten broken by slamming doors enough times, I finally began genuinely to look up and seek God for direction in my life instead of just fire insurance in the event of my death. And since, He has begun to help me see more clearly.
He showed me that the answer to a healthy body lies in Spirit-led self control, and deliberate daily choices. He has helped me discern the difference between emotional hunger and physical need. He showed me that a lot of my “feel bad” was driven by being out of step with the Holy Spirit. He showed me that my sense of security is not circumstantial but fixed on faith.
And lately, He is showing me that my faith doesn’t depend on everything in life working out, because sometimes it just doesn’t.
In short, looking up shows me how to change for the better in deep and lasting ways instead of just patching the potholes in my life, whether they are spiritual or physical.
So whether you are trying to lose weight, find hope or just make it through the day, I hope you’ll take a minute to stop scurrying around and just … look up.
I lift up my eyes to the hills. From where does my help come? My help comes from the Lord, who made heaven and earth.
He will not let your foot be moved; he who keeps you will not slumber. Behold, he who keeps Israel will neither slumber nor sleep.
The LORD is your keeper; the LORD is your shad on your right hand. The sun will not strike you by day, nor the moon by night.
The LORD will keep you from all evil; he will keep your life. The LORD will keep your going out and your coming in from this time forth and forevermore.
~Psalm 121:1-2
Amen!