Upward Resolution

"Send out your light and your truth; let them lead me; let them bring me to your holy hill and to your dwelling!"--Psalm 43:3-4

There’s a lot of truth to the current wave of exhortations to Believers to bust out of the comfyness of our four church walls, get over our myself-ness, and get on with being the out-there, called-out Church wherever He has planted us.

There’s also a lot of truth to this: Me and myself-ness is where the Adversary goes first, often, and from every angle, because when I feel weak in me and myself-ness, he knows that I will have that tendency to stay holed up in my comfyness and stay home where it’s safe. And when that happens, so much for being the called-out Church.

In the middle is the reality, that no matter what it may feel like at any moment, God always wins, and His loving call to us is to persevere so we can become, increasingly more often than not, that called-out kind of person. But, as in many things with God, it is our choice. The psalmists, who were talking to their souls a lot about being “downcast” and “oppressed,” knew this well. They were not always bummed out, but their emotions (like ours) were often all over the map within a five-minute period. It took resolve, and they knew it.

The Adversary’s biggest weapon of deterrent, then as it is now, is to try take us out of the game by getting us doing what both of these words imply: looking downward, being faint of hope, and muttering “why me?”  No wonder the psalmists kept exhorting themselves and others to look up, where there is no despair and hopelessness but only Light and Truth. The writer of Hebrews exhorts the same: “Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.”

It’s good to remember that no matter what it may feel like, God has not left the building. But looking Up, remembering His unfailing love and faithfulness, and praising Him for it all, is a choice rooted not in what side of the bed I happened to get up on this morning, but in one thing and one thing only: a deep-seated trust in God’s proven faithfulness to His Name and His Word, always and forever.

Lord, when all else seems upside down, help us remember that only Your light and truth make any sense in this life. And as we choose to look Up and take that all in, let it fuel the unloading of burdens, lead to abandoned praise (or both), and inspire one more steadfast step out of our comfyness and into being the Church we were called out to be….

O my God, shine Your light and truth

To help me see clearly,

To lead me to Your holy mountain,

To Your home.

Then, I will go to God’s altar with nothing to hide.

I will go to God, my rapture;

I will sing praises to You and play my strings,

Unloading my cares,

Unleashing my joys to You,

God, my God.—Psalm 43:3-4, The Voice