Given July 31, 2007

As I read my devotion this morning, I received another aspect of a revelation the Lord had showed me previously. It has to do with “looking up”.

Today, I read of a fatally injured eagle on the ground and how he gazed at the sky, longing for the “home of his heart”. His place was not on the ground where danger lurked but soaring in the sky where he was free to be what God had created him to be.

Looking up is a good thing; up is positive, down is negative. I’m reminded of the guys who took their sick friend to see Jesus, (Mark 2). They couldn’t get in the door so, as they pondered how to get help for their friend, they looked up; “Hey, the roof!”

Peter, in his exuberance and faith at seeing Jesus, jumped out of the boat and began walking on the water, (Matthew 14). As long as he focused on Jesus who had said to him, “Come.”, (v. 29), he was OK. Then…he looked down.

My wife was recovering from out-patient surgery and the nurse had gotten her up to walk for the first time. She was still rather groggy and unsteady from the anesthesia as she tried to walk but the nurse told her, “Don’t’ look down, look up. You’ll do better if you look up.”

There are many examples in scripture of the benefits of looking up but I’ll close with the words of an old hymn: Turn your eyes upon Jesus. Look full in His wonderful face. And the things of earth will grow strangely dim, in the light of His glory and grace, (Hel­en H. Lem­mel, 1922). If you’re going through something right now…”Look up, and lift up your heads; for your redemption draweth nigh. Luke 21:28“.