In a former life, I was a swimmer. And in swimming, if you want to go far and go fast, the position of your head is super important. Maybe you've noticed this when in a swimming pool, but at the end of each lane is a BLACK T painted on the wall. There are a few reasons for that, but the primary reason is to protect the swimmer from crashing into the wall.
But the BLACK T also serves another purpose — it gives the swimmer something to keep their eyes focused on. If you've ever swum a couple of laps in a pool, you know that swimming can be a bit tiring. And when you get tired, the first thing that usually happens is your head drops, which means your eyes now only see the bottom of the pool.
And in swimming, if your head is buried underwater, it will only make swimming that much more difficult, because your body will naturally follow where your head is going. Hence, the fastest swimmers know how to keep their heads up with their eyes consistently looking at the BLACK T.
Why am I telling you this?
Well, as we continue this series of devotionals called QUESTIONS, I was confronted with a fantabulous question this week as I finished reading through Leviticus.
AM I WALKING WITH MY HEAD HELD HIGH?
Might seem like an odd question to be confronted with in Scripture, but see this with me in Leviticus 26:11-13 (NLT)…
"I will live among you, and I will not despise you. I will walk among you; I will be your God, and you will be my people. I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt so you would no longer be their slaves. I broke the bars of your yoke and enabled you to walk with heads held high."
The people of God had known nothing but slavery — backs bent, heads down, existence measured out by someone else's demands — and God says, "I broke the bars of your yoke and enabled you to walk with heads held high."
Love this… God does not just say, "I set you free." He did do that, but He reminds His people of how they can carry themselves now that they're free.
Heads up. Eyes forward. Why?
ONE REASON…
THE GOD WHO LIVES AMONG THEM AND WALKS AMONG THEM HAS BROKEN WHAT USED TO BREAK THEM.
Am I walking with my head held high? Are you?
For me, I answer that by saying, "Yes… sort of, most days, but not every day."
Not sure how you'd answer the question, but I'm going to guess it might sound a little bit like my answer. So, if that's the case, let me ask you this…
WHAT MAKES YOUR HEAD DROP?
Is it the weight of something you can't undo?
Is it the weight of something happening in your life right now — the diagnosis, the financial mess, the marriage that's hanging by a thread, or the friendship that just seems beyond repair?
Maybe it's as simple as the pure exhaustion of trying to hold it all together and feeling like you're losing.
Whatever it is, life has a way of making us look down instead of up. Life, especially hardship, convinces us that this — the failure, the fear, the circumstance gets to define how we walk.
Well, if I may, I’d like to remind you of what God reminded me of through His Word in Leviticus.
God didn't tell the people of God to lift their heads because of what they had done — He told them to lift their heads because of what He had done.
This is the beauty of the Gospel. Because of Jesus, His death on the cross broke the real chains of sin and shame and His resurrection guarantees those chains stay broken. And because of that – you and I get to walk with our heads held high.
Not because of a good week.
Not because the circumstances finally worked out.
And not because we cleaned ourselves up enough to feel good about walking with our heads held high.
Because of Jesus, and Jesus alone, regardless of what the day or season may bring forth, we can walk with our heads held high all day, every day.
Our posture is no longer determined by our hardest day.
Our posture is determined by our Savior.
Remember the BLACK T?
The fastest swimmers don't keep their heads up by trying harder in the moment they're exhausted. They keep their heads up because they've trained their eyes to fix on something outside of themselves — something steady, something that doesn't move no matter how tired they get.
And just so you know, that’s Jesus… He’s our BLACK T.
Fix your eyes there, and your whole body — your whole life — follows.
