Mud Or Stars?

Eyes glue to glowing screen, and I scroll. Gaze falls on a story that just might change everything. 

Military general tells a story from his wayward youth-years. Of a fellow prison inmate who taught him the power of choice. Who showed him how to see. Whose wise words propelled the future leader into a life of service and revealed the way out to a then-struggling young man. The two were in their cell one night, and the young man looked out the cell window and commented that he saw mud. The inmate, lying in his bunk, said that he saw stars. Truth-words fell from his lips as he added, "It's your choice. You can look at stars or mud." 

Breath stops as I pause and see it all laid out before me: maybe I've been a mud see-er when I could have been a star-gazer. Could have simply chosen to make the eyes turn Heavenward. 

The image of two men in a jail cell sticks with me. How one thought there was no other way to see but down. But the other knew the only way to look was up. And perhaps I've looked down so often over time that I, too, have thought there's no other way. Have forgotten the hope-way. And just maybe this is the reminder I've needed that there is another way. A better way. A way that leads to the soul "yes." 

Verses float into my mind as I crawl into bed. I'm not near the window to see stars, plus the clouds hide them. And the soul-clouds feel like their hiding Him from me, too. But He speaks through the hiding and I hear it coming from the depths of my aching heart...

"When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers,

the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, 

what is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of

man that you care for him?"

- (Psalm 8:3-4)

Four words stay on repeat, and I keep preaching it to myself as if to drive it into the lowest part of me. 

Look up, and consider. 

Look UP, and consider. 

I come back to the idea that all of life is a choice on what we choose to see. And then it comes clear: the inmate was lying down when he saw the stars. He was putting himself in a position to see nothing but what was above. And am I truly putting myself in a place where I can see God for who He really is? 

I think back to all the times I've seen nothing but mud. Have seen the ugly and the messed-up and the broken and the lacking and have failed to give thanks. Have neglected to force my eyes up and have instead kept them pealed to the earthly, counting all the ways I've been denied rather than all the ways He loves. And I repent. 

I can't stop re-reading the story and it doesn't seem to matter that I can't bring myself to read the rest of the article. I'm stuck on three paragraphs. Three paragraphs that have shifted soul-gaze back to the eternal. The unchangeable. And I bless. Clenched fists open, and I tell God, "yes." For that is all He's ever asking from me is to believe His goodness even when what I see appears to be anything but good. 

Look up, I tell myself. Look UP. 

There are stars still shining above mud and clear skies following rain that's made all this soft-earth and there is hope following every dark way. Above all, there is always Grace.

I may live in the depths, but I can still see Him in the heights. And it all comes back to what I choose to see.