look up

When I visit my family's ranch in Texas, I find myself walking around the property, soaking in the beauty, the stillness, the quiet... not only looking all around me - as far as my eyes can see - soaking up said beauty. But I find myself looking up.

I never know what I might find. 

Beautiful clouds...

Beautiful trees...

Maybe even a beautiful Shredtown-bootie-tree.

This got me thinking... I could very easily not look up. I could very easily only see what is on an equal plane as myself. And I could very easily miss out on all the beauty that is above.

In life, how often do we do the same? How often do we forget to look up?

I know that I, for one, can get so consumed by what's going on around me. I can get bogged down by the day to day grind, overwhelmed by the things of this world that competing for my attention. I can lose heart, feel exhausted, and want to give up.

But when I look up? Well, that's when the Lord reminds me, that's when the Lord puts it all back into perspective. That I am small. And He is big. That He is in control. And I am not. He has beauty to show us along the way... But we have to look up, to look to Him, to see it.

"I can see how it might be possible for a man to look down upon the earth and be an atheist, but I cannot conceive how he could look up into the heavens and say there is no God." - Abraham Lincoln

Unfortunately when we look around ourselves here on this earth, in this life, too often we don't see beauty. Too often we will see pain, heartbreak, devastation. But no matter how ugly it seems, I truly believe the Lord has some beauty in all situations to show us... But we have to look up to see it.

I know that when I look up, the Lord renews my strength, renews my faith, and gives me hope like never before.

What if we started relying less on ourselves and more on God? What if we focused more on what is above us than what is around us. What if we looked up?

"If lift up my eyes to the mountains - where does my help come from? My help comes from the Lord, the maker of heaven and earth." - Psalm 121:1-2