Look up
Just home from an end-of-the-year meeting at school, I get Little his breakfast, grind up the beans, and measure fresh coffee into the filter. Cream (the real kind) swirls like ribbons in my insulated mug. Backpack over my shoulder, I slip outside to share a cup with my Friend Who Knows.
The clouds above, they match my mood. Restlessness, anxiety, uncertainty swirl down through my heart like the cream in my coffee. What is happening? What’s coming next?
Things are changing at work. Slowly, so slowly in recent months, the volume’s been dropping. My checks have been shrinking. And now, out of the blue, it’s dried to a trickle. Technology invades. The doctors, I know, must keep pace with the times; hence, the switch to electronic records. Leaving me and my colleagues…
Other worries, fears tick through my mind. A sense of failure pervades. Perhaps if I’d only…or perhaps if I hadn’t…
I sip from the mug. Thinking…thinking…listening…
Yes. I see exactly which enemies are getting the best of me right now. Battle. War. Fight it. But how?
Opening His letter, I turn to the shepherd, warrior, and friend of God. There, the Psalmist speaks to me of refuges and shields, of training for battle and defeating my foes. I read of victory and praise and enemies turned to flight. Yes! Oh, yes.
From my quiet place facing the wide expanse of freshly-mown lawn, I open just one more source of nourishment, that little devotional, “God Calling,” and read this for today:
“‘Look unto Me and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth.’ To look is surely within the power of everyone. One look suffices. Salvation follows.
“Look, and you are saved from despair. Look, and you are saved from care. Look, and you are saved from worry. Look, and into you there flows a peace beyond all understanding –a power new and vital, a joy wonderful indeed.
“Look and keep looking. Doubt flees. Joy reigns, and hope conquers. Life – Eternal Life – is yours, revitalizing, renewing.”
Herein lies our hope. We look to Jesus, Author and Finisher of our faith. Through joy and sorrow, through victory and defeat, through uncertainty and in the knowing, we look. And in the looking, we are helped, we are saved, and we are led.
Look up.
“I will lift mine eyes unto the hills from whence cometh my help. My help cometh from the Lord Who made heaven and earth.”
Because there is salvation (resurrection) as we look in faith…