Lift Up Your Head

How is our walk with God? Is it burdensome, as if we’re carrying a heavy load, or is light and effortless as our eyes are fixed firmly on all that lies ahead? If we’re bowed down under a heavy weight, we can’t see the way forward. All we see is our feet, plodding on, one after the other. Sometimes we can’t even see where we’re going. We find ourselves straining through the fog, trusting in our own capabilities and our limited understanding. Perhaps our path is familiar, as we walk along it every day without even thinking about it. It may become routine and uneventful, until something happens. Then what? Where do we go for help?

‘For the Lord God is a sun and shield. He gives grace and glory. No good thing will He withhold from those who walk uprightly’ (Psalm 84:11). ‘Walk uprightly?’  What does this mean? It means walking with integrity, morality, and honesty. But our physical walk can also reflect our mood. The way we walk can be an indication of where we are within ourselves, with other people and with God. We can be brisk, efficient, and confident, or we can be labouring under a heavy load. And it shows.

In Psalm 42 we see the Psalmist David asking himself: “Why are you downcast, O my soul? Why so disturbed within me?” (Verse 5). He is obviously feeling very sorry for himself, dejected and looking down. He can’t see where he’s going. “Why have you forgotten me?” (Verse 9).

This verse is quoted again in the same Psalm (verse 11). It seems David can’t shake off his feeling of unworthiness and self pity. Then he comes up with the answer: ‘Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise Him, my Saviour and my God’. At last, he’s found the way. He will praise God whatever the circumstances, because it’s the only way.

‘Lift up your heads, you gates; be lifted up, you ancient doors, that the King of glory may come in’ (Isaiah 24:7). Only the King of glory can raise our hopes, our expectations, and our faith. Only the King of glory can take us from where we are and change us into people who share the inheritance of Jesus Christ. Only God can lift us out of our pit and raise us up with Christ to be seated with Him in the heavenly realms’ (Ephesians 2:6).

As we lift our heads and look up, the load we are carrying slips away. As we stand and look to Jesus, our burden becomes light. So, let’s look to Him and allow His glory to reflect in our face. We have the most precious gift of all in our fellowship with the Lord. Let’s walk with Him and talk with Him, and share our lives with Him, daily. And He will open up His life to us and ‘no good thing will He withhold from those who walk uprightly.’