Looking Up

Isaiah 45:22 - Look to Me, and be saved, all you ends of the earth! For I am God, and there is no other. 

Look up...we look something up to gain knowledge. We look up to someone. We look up scripture and we see Jesus. We look up...to see Jesus, who will give all the real knowledge we need.

I was spending an afternoon cross stitching a Christmas gift. I turned on the Hallmark channel and watched a movie based on a book by Mitch Albom called Have a Little Faith, a true story.

Mitch is a sports writer who has fallen away from his Jewish faith. The old Rabbi Albert of his (former) synagogue asks him to do his eulogy. Mitch can't figure out why since he hasn't attended in awhile. But I'm sure Rabbi Albert knows. (My question is, how did this rabbi know? What did he see in Mitch?)

So Mitch spends time learning who this very wise Reb is in order to have some background...and eight years go by before the rabbi dies! During that time Mitch learns a lot about life and faith in God. Sometimes it really takes time.

In the meantime Mitch also meets Henry, a drug dealer turned pastor in a church with a hole in the roof and no heat or electricity when the bills don't get paid...and he finds a truly content and joyful congregation just the same. Even the men who sleep in the church under a leaky roof are happy. Although Mitch knew they had faith, I know their faith went a step further to faith in Jesus Christ. But Mitch was noticing.

This was all causing him to wonder. He's taking it all in. At one point in the movie after talking with Henry, he relates to his audience this statement: I think I used to know so much. I could look down and scoff at things, even faith. But I realized that night that I'm not better or  smarter than anyone. Only luckier. The men who slept on Henry's church floor never looked down; they only looked up to find comfort and love. And I realized at looking at Henry Covington I was seeing the rarest of things...a changed man.

When someone scoffs at the things of God, they are missing out on something. Henry was living in the dregs of his life but when faced with a potentially tragic situation he called out to God for mercy and God heard him...and Henry was changed, by the power of the Holy Spirit of God.

On the rabbi's death bed he asks Mitch to begin to write. Mitch says he's not ready...not that the eulogy isn't able to be written but that he'd been coming around because not only did the rabbi need something (the assistance he provided for this aging man) but because he needed something. And through these years, the eyes of Mitch's soul were receiving greatly from the Reb and Henry.

I scoffed much of my life. One day I realized something in my life needed to change and one day I asked for the Lord's help. Little did I know He was going to change me, not the situation. But that was okay because that's usually where the first change takes place. I came out ahead. No longer down and defeated, but with hope.

There's always a perfect time for God to show His love. We are to show the greatest love through our witness of Him. Timing may not always be when we want it for someone. Sometimes it really takes time. It will be in God's perfect timing...when someone needs it most. But we who have the hope of Jesus Christ are to at least plant the seeds. One seed may be plucked away by a bird, the next blown away by a breeze or tossed onto rocky soil which is not suitable for growth. But some day just one seed might be planted when the ground of one's heart is fertile and ready to receive. So time after time we are to sow.

My hope is in Jesus Christ. I'm not sure if Mitch has or will come to the saving grace of Jesus Christ. We cannot know the real spiritual condition of one's heart, but Mitch was at least examining himself, searching his heart, seeing evidence of a loving God both through the rabbi and Henry and Henry's rag tag congregation who knew where their hope lay.

None of us are smarter or better than the next person...in the case of a believer in Jesus Christ it isn't becoming luckier. It's not about luck. It's about a gift we receive. It's having the peace that a life in Christ brings. It's having the hope in something greater than ourselves or any human being. Praise goes to God alone for that. He loved enough to see it happen in my life and in the life of each person who chooses to look up to see where their help cometh from.

He can change the hardest of heart and the weakest of persons. Sometimes it really takes time. But when He makes a change, there is victory over those things that held us back from the really great things God has to offer. In the eulogy Mitch pointed out that he learned from the rabbi that the only whole heart is a broken one! And, yes this is the truth. It's the whole way of God to point us in His direction. The point of the movie was to look up...

At the end of the movie Mitch makes one other statement: I realized later it wasn't about having the answers in life. It's about the search for the answers...the choosing to believe in something bigger than yourself that makes the journey of faith so challenging yet so worthwhile.

Joy to the world, our Lord did come! He came for all people. If you don't know Him and what He has for you, look up this Christmas, past the presents and the tree and all the cookies and food. Look to the true meaning of Christmas. Listen carefully to the very familiar words of the Christmas songs. I remember how those words had a whole new meaning after I had allowed myself to be changed by an Almighty God. Search your own heart.

Like Mitch spent time with Rabbi Albert to get to knowing him, or with Pastor Henry or his content congregation, when we spend time in the Word we learn about Jesus. We learn about the people who followed Him and how He used ordinary people. Look Jesus up or look up to Jesus. He's always waiting...at any time in one's life...

So all right, I lost an hour or so of my cross stitching time! But it was so worth it.

Psalm 121:1-8 - I will lift up my eyes to the hills from whence comes my help? My help comes from the Lord, Who made heaven and earth. He will not allow your foot to be moved; He who keeps you will not slumber. Behold, He who keeps Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep. The Lord is your keeper; the Lord is your shade at your right hand. The sun shall not strike you by day, nor the moon by night. The Lord shall preserve you from all evil; He shall preserve your soul. The Lord shall preserve your going out and your coming in from this time forth, and even forevermore.