Keep Looking Up

Keep Looking Up

Our present troubles are small and won’t last very long. Yet they produce for us a glory that vastly outweighs them and will last forever! So we don’t look at the troubles we can see now; rather, we fix our gaze on things that cannot be seen. For the things we see now will soon be gone, but the things we cannot see will last forever. 2 Corinthians 4:17-18

Corrie ten Boom once met a missionary who was desperate because Christians were continually being attacked and killed near her home. Corrie didn’t tell the woman that the troubles would go away. Instead, she said to look down on the storms and terrible events around her from on high, from the heavenly realms, where Jesus’ victory is the truest reality.

Corrie recounted how she and her sister Betsie were walking around the German concentration camp grounds praying one morning at four thirty when God performed a miracle. Betsie would say something and Corrie would reply; then the Lord would speak and they both heard him at the same time. The sisters, though surrounded by the horrors of the concentration camp, saw then that although everything around them was terrible, they could rely on the fact that God didn’t have problems, only plans.

Corrie realized that there was never panic in heaven. And although it seemed at the time that the devil was the victor, God is faithful, and his plans never fail. He knew their future and knew the way. That vision of God’s greatness empowered Corrie not to panic, even though she faced horrific loss, danger, and the death of her beloved sister Betsie soon after. It sustained her later in her life when she traveled the world to share the message of God’s forgiveness and love. Just as the Lord was there for Corrie and as we keep looking up, he will be our stability in an unstable world, our unchangeable certainty when everything is changing. There is no safer place than at the center of his purpose for our lives.

—CHERI

Lord, may I have an ever-greater vision of you. Grant me a spirit of wisdom and revelation to know you and the faith to believe that you are greater than any problem or adversity. Thank you for your promise that these present troubles are small compared to the exceedingly great glory and joy that will last forever.

Keep looking in the right direction in everything you do; that is so important. Keep looking up and kneeling down.

—CORRIE TEN BOOM (1892–1983), HOLOCAUST SURVIVOR, AUTHOR