Don't Forget to Look Up!

I look up to the hills—
    does my help come from there?
 My help comes from the Lord,
    who made heaven and earth!

He will not let you stumble;
    the one who watches over you will not slumber.
Indeed, he who watches over Israel never slumbers or sleeps. (Psalm 121:1-4)

 Jewish tradition says the parting of the Red Sea was the greatest miracle ever.  Through that one miracle God redeemed 600,000 of his people from slavery.   

The Midrash, a rabbinical collection of homiletic stories that help explain the scriptures, asserts that while the bottom of the Red Sea was still wet and muddy, two men, Reuven and Shimon, were disgusted as they slogged through the mud.  

Reuven said. “Ugh, what is this muck?”  Shimon scowled, “There is mud everywhere.”  “This is just like the slime pits of Egypt,” Reuven replied.  “What’s the difference?” complained Shimon.  “Mud here, mud there; it’s all the same.”  

And so it went for the two of them, grumbling all the way across the muddy bottom of the sea.  They never once looked up, and because of that, they never understood why everyone else was singing songs of praise on the distant shore.   

The problem wasn’t with their eyes, but with their hearts. If we only set our hearts on the things around us, we will become preoccupied with simply making it through the mud and getting to the other side.  

We won’t recognize the amazing things God is doing all around us.  And if, as the Midrash suggests, those who passed through the Red Sea mud didn’t even notice how God was moving in their midst, it is likely that we will regularly miss the less spectacular ways that God is at work within us.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning reminds us:

"Earth's crammed with heaven, and every common bush afire with God, But only he who sees takes off his shoes; The rest sit around and pluck blackberries."

As the children of Israel ascended the steep, winding road from Jericho to Jerusalem to participate in the feast of Passover, they sang “I lift up my eyes to the hills… from whence does my help come, my help comes from the Lord who made heaven and earth.  As they looked up, God’s help came down.