Last time my buddy and I went hiking, we spent some time just after we got out of the car trying to identify a strange noise. It was a busy day at Red Rock NCA, and the rocks near us were covered with teenagers involved in rock climbing and repelling. Eventually, we found the source of the noise, which was a small drone hovering above the picnic area recording footage of the teenagers. Jay turned to me and commented on the fact that it took us longer than we like to admit to scan an area besides the area all around us.
Most people think two dimensionally in a world with more than that. We look all around, but we do not usually look up. This same flaw enabled Captain Kirk to defeat Khan in Star Trek II when he started fighting in three dimensions. We sometimes get caught up in that to which we become accustomed. We get so used to "looking both ways before we cross the street" that we don't look anywhere else. Just this week, while I was walking and deep in thought, I almost smacked my head on a street sign low enough to hit me but high enough that it wasn't in my normal field of vision. So much lies outside of our normal perceptive range. When we look for answers or solutions or help, we are prone to do what comes easy. You see, it takes work, HARD work, to ascend to a higher plane of existence, but many things can only be properly viewed when we look at them from above.
When trouble comes, we turn to friends, to loan sharks, or to government. We read books, try pills, change our diets, and hire professional help. All of these efforts confine themselves to the plane of existence in which we reside. Rarely do we look up, and when we do, it's often without penitence, humility, and submissiveness. When we look up, we try to boss God around, as if we can see or understand what will really help us. Only from His lofty, vaulted, and exalted perspective can our circumstances really make sense, and only from that vantage point can we understand why the path along which He directs us leads to peace, safety, and happiness.
Many years ago while still in college, I had an experience where I got to be that perspective. A few of us went to a corn maze in the fall, and some of our number got disoriented in the maze. To help them get free, my date and I went up on one of the observation decks and shouted directions to them. I guess we were lucky that they trusted us, because they followed our commands and got free of the maze. All too often, we do not trust God and insist on our way right away, keeping ourselves in a lost and fallen and disoriented state.
Now we have a world where people are confused; if you don't believe it, go and watch the news. They use words that do not mean what they think they mean; they have things both ways when it suits them; they call good evil and evil good and think that nothing really matters. Well, even small things matter. No matter how long you look around at your own level, if the help for which you are looking isn't in the same plane of existence, you will never find it. In order for my friend and I to see the drone and satisfy the query of the mind that preoccupied us that morning, we had to look up. That is the message religion teaches. When in doubt, we must look upward. When we fall, we must rise up. If we desire the best things, we must be upstanding. It is not enough for us to walk upright; even monkeys do that. We must walk uprightly. It is no accident that men through all ages have looked up at the sky. They knew there was power there. They knew the answers lay elsewhere, somewhere higher, and when we are abased, God invites us to look on Him and benefit from His wisdom, power, and knowledge.
For the past two years or so, this has been my favorite hymn. I sometimes struggle to be the only one trying to rise up and rise above it, and sometimes I'm not able to be as "up" as I like. However, it reminds me that only when I "have done with lesser things" can I have the better and the best that life has to offer.
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