Today I want to tell you to lift up your eyes. In Psalms

123:1 David writes, "I will lift up my eyes to the hills - where does my

help come from?" God wants us to lift our eyes. He says "Hey, look up

here." Abraham, lift up your eyes and see the stars... Get your mind on

bigger, better, higher. God cares where we look, He knows the impact it

has. Lifting your eyes means you are looking to the heavenly things, the

spiritual things, the unseen answers that are in the mind's eye, the

promises of God that will come to you by faith. Lifting up your eyes

tells us to look at the good stuff. Keep your eyes off the dirt, mud,

junk. In this life we are either looking at the good or bad, looking up,

or looking down. We see the good in our spouse or the bad, the solutions

in our job, or the problems, the joy in our life, or the pain, the

things we have, or the things someone else has. When we look at our pain

it just attracts more pain. When we look at the negative we crawl deeper

into the negative world. But when we lift up our eyes we see the things

of God, we get into hope, we climb back out of the pit of despair, and

it's all hidden in a simple glance. The problem is, looking at the

negative stuff is fun at first. It is addictive. Watching how bad the

world is getting, and then almost taking pride in talking about it.

What's wrong with the boss, or the company, our bills, our health, our

spouse, the president or the pastor, or attacking a 20-year-old-girl for

not handling the American Anthem correctly. We have a problem, maybe

more now than I have ever witnessed in my lifetime. People are scouring

the earth for what is bad, and then making it sound worse, then showing

the world for all to see, and then spewing hate. If ever there was a

need for Christians to lift their eyes out of the hate and muck, it is

now. I'm always looking for stuff because I leave stuff where it doesn't

go. I stop and look at the pantry. My wife says, "What are you looking

for"... What I'm looking at is determined by what I'm looking

for.