Look Up: Lessons I learned from Kyle

Meet Kyle. Kyle is my Beta fish. He's little and blue and cute (despite what this very terrible picture of him suggests... I was out of batteries so a cell phone pic had to do).

Kyle was given to me by my former boss at Simpson University for a job well done last summer. We've been through alot together... (Not really, because, well, he's a fish... But, you know...)

Anyway, last night I was attempting to feed little Kyle... (Now there's something I should explain first... Kyle is a picky eater. You have to drop each teeny tiny piece of food on the top of the water one-at-a-time until he stops taking the bait (pun intended) or I get tired of standing there giving it to him. It's a technique we have perfected over the last year, Kyle and I. We do it the same every night.)

But sometimes, Kyle just gets himself all in a tizzy (about whatever it is that Beta fish get in a tizzy about) and when it comes time to eat, it's Spaz-fest 2011. Last night was one of those nights.

Instead of coming up to the top of the water and taking each piece of food, he darts wildly around, jerking his head, and looking everywhere BUT where I am putting the food. He knows I am there to feed him, but in the panic of the moment he just can't seem to remember where his help is coming from. He looks down in the little rocks, he looks in the leaves of his little plant- everywhere except the place he needed to look to.

Last night I sighed in frustration as piece after piece of food sank to the bottom of his bowl (which annoys me because I have to clean it up later). If he would just look up, he would see that I am actually trying to help him... I said, "Just look up, darn it!"

And the still small voice of the Holy Spirit spoke to me in that moment.

I began thinking how very much like that little fish I am. In the panic of the moment, when the stress of the day or season gets to me, when people push my buttons, when things are out of my control, when I don't understand... I look everywhere but where I should be looking.

The Holy Spirit spoke to me in that moment and said, " Just look up". If only I would just look up in those moments, I would see that He is standing there holding out to me exactly what I am looking for.

He is the source. He is the Helper. He is faithful.

The Psalmist said it best...

Psalm 121

¹I lift up my eyes to the hills.

From where does my help come?

² My help comes from the LORD,
who made heaven and earth.

³He will not let your foot be moved;
he who keeps you will not slumber.
⁴Behold, he who keeps Israel
will neither slumber nor sleep.

⁵The LORD is your keeper;
the LORD is your shade on your right hand.

⁶ The sun shall not strike you by day,
nor the moon by night.

⁷The LORD will keep you from all evil;
he will keep your life.

⁸The LORD will keep
your going out and your coming in
from this time forth and forevermore.

I can be confident that in every season, He never changes. He will always be enough. He will always be my source.

So at the risk of sounding like a self-helpy-trite-and-true-I-listen-to-too-much-"contemporary Christian music"-y kind of bloggers, I say to you, dear reader:

Look up.