Lift Up Your Eyes

I will rejoice in the LORD. I will be glad because he rescues me. With every bone in my body I will praise him: “LORD, who can compare with you? Who else rescues the helpless from the strong? Who else protects the helpless and poor from those who rob them?”

Psalm 35:9-10

David, once again chased and oppressed by his flesh-and-blood enemies, does what he has learned to do in combat situations. He cries out to the Lord. He has learned that this battle tactic never fails. He knows that though he is in despair right now, victory is just ahead. He doesn’t have to wait to see it because he knows it from experience.

David starts by looking around him at his enemies. You and I may not have flesh-and-blood enemies, but we have spiritual enemies. And our spiritual enemies might use flesh-and-blood as weapons. Like David, we might look around and feel ourselves surrounded by circumstances or people who seem to be arrayed against us.

Immediately David turns his attention from the strength of his enemies to the power of God. He moves from worry to worship. His expectation of God’s intervention makes him start the celebrating early. Before he sees the rescue with his eyes, he knows it is coming and starts rejoicing in the midst of his difficulty. He grabs on to God’s promises like a drowning man grabs hold of a tree branch and hangs on for dear life.

When you look around right now, what do you see? Do you see circumstances aligned against you? Join David’s preemptive celebration. Praise sends your enemy into disarray and turns the battle around. With every bone in your body, praise God.

Lord, I choose praise. I choose to celebrate the victory that is in process rather than to wallow in sorrow and declare defeat.

The essence of optimism is that it takes no account of the present, but it is a source of inspiration, of vitality and hope where others have resigned; it enables a man to hold his head high, to claim the future for himself and not to abandon it to his enemy.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer(1906–1945), German pastor, theologian, and author