"Keep Looking Up!"

“Lift up your eyes to the heavens, and look on the earth beneath. For the heavens will vanish away like smoke, the earth will grow old like a garment; But My salvation will be forever, and My righteousness will not be abolished.”
-Isaiah 51:6 (NKJV)


My wife and I recently took our two sons Matthew and Jonathan, to one of their favorite places: “Paradise Park”. It’s a wonderful place filled with many things to see and do. One activity they have there is “The Rock Wall”. It is a man-made wall made of rock with many hand and foot-holds you can use to climb your way to the top. The boys wanted to try climbing it and so, with their mother and I’s permission as well as some help from the attendant, they took turns beginning their assent.

Jonathan went first. He took two steps up the wall, panicked and promptly asked the attendant to lower him back down. Matthew went next and after making it a little higher than Jonathan suddenly decided he couldn’t make it either and asked to be lowered back down as well. Both boys’ attempts at scaling the wall ended with
the same result: having to come back down without ever reaching the top. I myself have climbed several walls like this before and have never been able to make it all the way to the top either. That is…up until now!

As I watched their attempts wondering why none of us had ever been able to make it, something occurred to me that never had before: they both looked down. They took their eyes off the goal; ringing the bell at the top. “So that’s why I’ve never made it all the way. I looked down. I took my eyes off the goal and looked down.”

With this new-found revelation repeating in my head, I asked the attendant if I could give it a try. “Sure” he replied . I waited as he put all the protective harnesses on me. Then I prayed, set my eyes on the goal: ringing that bell and began my climb. I went slow, taking my time and looking for the best hand and foot-holds. All the way, I kept looking up, never taking my eyes off that rope that was used for ringing the bell and announcing to everyone in the place, that the mission had been accomplished.

After what seemed to me like an eternity, I MADE IT!!! I yanked that rope, rang that bell…and promptly forgot the lesson I had learned just minutes before: Keep looking up!!! I didn’t and after realizing just how high I really was, fell backwards and down screaming all the way. I did so not only to the amusement of the other patrons, but to the embarrassment of my wife and my two boys as well. This story is funny but I think there is a spiritual lesson that can be learned from it:

“KEEP LOOKING UP!” That’s what I told Matthew and Jonathan later on when they asked me how I made it. When the world seems cold and you feel all alone…“KEEP LOOKING UP!” When everything seems to be going wrong…“KEEP LOOKING UP!” When you’re sad and confused and don’t know where to turn… “KEEP LOOKING UP!”


“I lift up my eyes to the hills—where does my help come from? It comes from the LORD, the Maker of heaven and earth.”
-Psalm 121:1-2 (NIV)