Look Up!
Real talk.. I am certainly a prayerful person but if I’m not careful I can quickly jump to outsourcing for the instant gratification of knowledge in options like: phone a friend, just Google it, check that Instagram account I like, talk with mentors or professionals, ahem.. stay crazy busy and therefore distracted altogether from the awkwardness of stillness etc. All this striving and living out of my own strength to try to gain enough security in knowledge or decisions instead of silencing the noise around me while I should be staying quiet with God just a little longer.. you know, exercising real faith.. Spoiler alert: it’s never helpful my way. Just stressful. Faith is risky and trust is hard sometimes. (Not just me, right?!😉) While it’s not at all bad to pursue accountability and wisdom from trustworthy sources, we should do this sometimes, it can be an easy trap to fall into especially in this age of such easy information (and opinion) overload to look to these earthly sources first. I must confess that the Lord has been tugging at my heart on the matter in recent days as I pursue direction and peace in some of my next steps.
Leave it my sweet Lord to holler at a girl in the way He knows I’ll listen up. While playing outside with the kids yesterday, my oldest shouts, “Look a rainbow!!!” I glance around the at the sky and do not see anything.. which I admitted to her. Her response? “Mama, don’t look out. Look up! It’s right there!” Low and behold, I looked directly upward rather than mostly above the tree line and a perfect rainbow shone overhead. Beautiful! God’s promise picture was resting just above me but my gaze was fixed more harshly on the horizon than hopefully heavenward.
Heavenly direction rarely comes with worldly permissions. I encourage everyone to link arms with me as I learn, yet again, to rest in that colorful, radiant promise that God is trustworthy. Peace is available. Prayer is a frontline war move, not a backseat driver. Faith comes from leaning into Spirit-led convictions. Silencing the noise of the world is a discipline worthy of pursuit and constant guarding. Children truly are a blessing of the Lord and occasionally little double-edged swords God uses to prune me further.
So let’s look upward more than we look outward as we pursue every next step that the Father leads. “Don’t look out. Look up!”