Looking down

I have spent the past two days at our deer lease. We hunted a little bit, ate delicious burgers cooked on a grill in the middle of a pasture, worked over some out-of-shape trees, and concluded the trip with a traditional arrowhead hunt. It is one of my husband's favorite hobbies and we all fall in line behind him like a family of little ducks.

Today we drove to the "top secret" location, unloaded, and all began looking down. (We search individually until someone lets out a scream to the others that they have something worthwhile in hand.) After about 10 minutes of walking and looking down very intently, my neck began to ache. I tried to ignore it. Please...I told myself. I have given birth to four children and recently fought off an attack by a rooster....I CAN deal with a bit of neck pain! I kept on walking and looking determined to impress the group with a find.

After 30 minutes, my neck felt like I was carrying a 10 pound dumbbell around. Looking down is just not normal for me. I usually walk with eyes up, head up, and this MESS of a position was driving me crazy. It occurred to me that I have been through periods in life, sometimes a day or two, maybe a week, or even a year, that I did look down a lot. Life was only making it to the next step and not anything more than that. I was miserable, trapped in bondage battling addictions living a life of total defeat!

It can even feel more natural to look down and expect the next bad thing to happen than to possible lift your head in anticipation of good news. Expecting less of yourself and others is safe. Maybe you just don't even have time to realize why you are so down and lost because life is moving too quickly from one week to the next, one meaningless activity to the next and looking up would require time that you don't have.

My family did not know it, but I had one of those quiet moments in my soul today on my walk. When I felt my neck ache and stretched my chin up to look at the sky and get a break, I thanked the Lord that with His grace and love, His free gift and promise of His daily presence in my life, I no longer look down very often for a long period of time. The verse from Psalm 3:3 came to mind "But you are a shield around me, O Lord; you bestow glory on me and lift up my head."

If you are in need of a lift of this kind, I know the way! I have been there. I look around and see so many in pain. Often pain that is out of their own control, but caused by the actions of others, but I know that the Lord can lift them up no matter who is to blame or what has happened! Even when the world, your past choices and sin, or the enemy would like to keep you downcast and without hope, there is HOPE! It begins with a verse like this one that I remembered today. Start 2011 with reading a Psalms out loud....the power in the spoken Word blows me away. The Word is life and when we read it, we do look up and find hope. Maybe we even realize that our view has been totally out of whack for a while.

We all have a plan and purpose in Jesus Christ. I am looking up in 2011 and speaking this into my life every day from Psalm 5:3..... "In the morning, O Lord, you hear my voice; in the morning I lay my request before you and wait in expectation." Look up in expectation and if anything is in the way or keeping you down, confess it and refuse to look down again!