Paul's Place

My Place of reflection, joy and wonder

To whom am I looking?

Psalm 121 starts “I lift my eyes to the hills – where does my help come from? My help comes from the Lord, the Maker of heaven and earth.” So why do I look elsewhere? Where is my surety, my trust and my faith? If it does not rest totally on the Lord, how can I expect to be blessed by Him?

Once again, I find this a difficult lesson to learn. If I have a question I rush to other people to obtain the answer; I scour the internet; I read books. It is as if I don’t trust God to answer me, to hear Him when He speaks.

“All that is good is not necessarily God” I heard this recently from a teaching session by John Paul Jackson. I was thrown back in my seat – wow! How easy it is to assume that because something looks good, seems to work, that it must be right. However, if the source is not God, it may be a very attractive trap set by the Devil. Let us not forget that the Devil was the one who led worship in Heaven – so He knows how to make things sound good!

In that same teaching we were reminded that the tree of knowledge is not the same as the tree of life. It seems obvious doesn’t it? But do we remember what happened to Adam and Eve who took of the tree of knowledge? It became the tree of death. What flows from the tree of life brings nourishment, healing, renewal.

If we look to the Lord, seek His counsel and His advice, confirm it with scripture; then we have a sure foundation to stand on. If we look to the gurus that supply us with mountains of advice in books and on the internet – that charge enormous amounts for you to attend lectures on being successful and victorious over all your opponents through self-attainment – then we are being deceived and just as likely opening ourselves to Death. It is not man who attains but God who blesses – isn’t it time we learnt this?

God often talks to us in dreams and visions – so do we take note of our dreams and visions? Do we ask God to give us dreams and visions? When He reveals His purpose in a dream or vision that seems a little obscure or “off the wall”, do we ignore it or seek the interpretation of that dream?

To whom am I looking? I will seek the Lord, I will lift my eyes to the hills and pronounce as David did: “My help comes from the Lord”.