On Looking Up

This blog finds me where I would prefer it not, doing what only a great love for my dogs keeps from being a dreaded chore.  I was picking my way across the side yard and entered the back, methodically walking in wide lanes picking up my dogs’ “surprises.”  My mind was in neutral – no thoughts one way or the other – when I looked up just in time for a great blue heron to go sweeping by a few feet away at eye level.  I turned and watched as he flew across the lake and disappeared behind a house.

I was able to enjoy his flight for a few sweet seconds and he was gone.  I immediately realized that if I had been looking up the whole time, I would have seen him approaching and how exciting that would have been!  (Understanding that “eyes up” in this instance would have been a risky way to go and that my shoes might not have appreciated the lesson.)

But the example stands.  How many times I have advised a friend, “Keep your eyes up!  Don’t look at your circumstances.”  And how many more times have I ignored that same advice myself and gotten mired down in the details of my life.  Sometimes I’m walking through by rote, one foot in front of the other, doing chores, running errands, not thinking – just doing.  Occasionally I remember to carry on my day-to-day without arguing or complaining (Phil. 2:14), but mulling over some little details that nag at my mind and bring me down.  In short, letting my normal circumstances or life’s trials rob me of the joy that waits whenever I encounter Jesus.  

Whenever I imagine Him standing there, smiling and eager to visit just because He loves me so, my spirit lifts, the circumstances fade away, and somehow He has once again taken my burdens up to carry Himself.  Eyes up!  Don’t miss the blue herons that God sends your way.

Psalm 34:8-10
Taste and see that the LORD is good; blessed is the man who takes refuge in him. Fear the LORD, you his saints, for those who fear him lack nothing.  The lions may grow weak and hungry, but those who seek the LORD lack no good thing.