Tag: look higher

The “H” Path to Hope

~ Barbara ~ 1 Comment

Maybe your own brokenness will help you relate to the Israelites of old. Like you, they were in a place they didn’t want to be, held captive by adverse circumstances, enslaved in a strange land, and overwhelmed with dismay. When you were wrested from your safe environment, you may have reacted as they did, weeping over bittersweet memories: 

“Beside the rivers of Babylon, we sat and wept as we thought of Jerusalem.”
Psalm 137:1

They wept with longing—for home, for a normal life, for a way out. And they complained.

Perhaps your questions and complaints are similar to theirs. Didn’t God see their plight? Didn’t He care about their pain?… Where was He now?

Isaiah asked the Israelites a series of questions that would lead them to the answer. “Do you not know?… Have you not heard? Has it not been told you from the beginning? Have you not understood since the earth was founded? He [God] sits enthroned above the circle of the earth” (Isaiah 40:22).

In effect, he was saying, “You’re looking for God’s presence—apparently you’ve forgotten that He is here and has been since the earth came into being.” God has not forgotten you. He is not unaware of your suffering. He has not abandoned you…

Isaiah offered them the H of hope: Lift up your eyes…

In chapter I reflected on daughter Stacey’s death:

I was shattered. My prayers were moans… And yet, in that trupor of grief, God’s grace pulled my eyes upward, compelling me to hold them higher.

Tenaciously, without cooperative emotions or enlightened understanding, I forced my eyes to look to the heavens, to the One who created and ruled my personal world. It was there that the threat of despair was beaten back…

Hold your eyes higher than your earthbound problems and look at the One who is above it all—you will find hope. It worked for me, and it will work for you.*

Next week, we will step onto the “O” Path.

*Excerpted from I Was Broken, Too, chapters three and four.

Now available on Amazon: I Was Broken, Too: Four Paths to Restore Hope and Finding Hope: 65 Meditations for a Broken Heart

Image by Sasin Tipchai from Pixabay

Personal Peace

~ Barbara ~ 3 Comments

Anxiety is a cruel taskmaster. His minions accompany him: tension, worry, panic, dread. They afflict us with wild imaginations, edginess, and sleeplessness. I found only one remedy—a change of focus that shifts our eyes from what we see to the One who is above it all.

In my book, I Was Broken, Too, I wrote a section about the importance of Holding your Eyes Higher, and referred to Israel’s fears and feelings of abandonment while in captivity. Isaiah gave them simple but sage advice: “Look up into the heavens.”

He followed this with a question, “Who created all the stars?” Then he assured them that God “brings them out like an army, one after another, calling each by its name. Because of His great power and incomparable strength, not a single one is missing” (Isa 40:26). Like the stars, God created us. He knows each of our names and has not lost or forgotten a single one of us.

Look up, my friend. Don’t focus on what you see on Earth’s level, because there is always more at play than we can see. God is sovereignly in control. He has a plan and the power and authority to execute it. As your Creator, He knows you better than you know yourself. His purposes will not be thwarted. We cannot comprehend the wonder of His intentions or the glory of His objectives.

Wars, on battlefields and in our hearts, are in His control. Answers are in place before we ask. Trust Him; your survival depends on it.

  • Pray about everything and thank Him, and His peace will guard your heart and mind (Philippians 4:6-7).
  • Believe Jesus’ promise to gift you with peace of mind and heart that is unlike anything the world knows. Let His words comfort you: “Don’t be troubled or afraid.” (John 14:27)
  • Share Isaiah’s confidence in God and declare, “You will keep in perfect peace all who trust in you, all whose thoughts are fixed on you!” (Isaiah 26:3)

Personal peace can be ours when we choose to shift our focus from here to there, from what we physically see to what we spiritually believe. I leave you with this blessing from 2 Thessalonians 3:16:

Now may the Lord of peace Himself give you His peace
at all times and in every situation.
The Lord be with you all.

Image by Jill Wellington from Pixabay