Navel-gazing. We all do it. For some of us, we literally fixate on our abdomens—their size, shape and composition. Others, metaphorically through constant thoughts about self, first and most.
Chances are, we all do a combination of the two. We easily get tunnel vision and focus on ourselves. How we feel, think and believe. What we like and dislike. How something/one affects us. If something/one is worth our time and resources. The answers to all life’s big questions: what, when, where, why and how all revolve around who, namely ourselves.
A certain level of self-awareness is necessary to live. We should be able to recognize our passions and pitfalls, our triggers and our treasures. Just as it’s important to know our limitations and the necessary steps to ensure we live from a place of balance and wholeness. The stickiness comes when our plumb line is off. Our focus goes sideways when our foundation is cracked and built on sand. Such is the “I-me-and-my” life.
Fortunately, we have a model to turn to when we are inundated with first-person pronouns or the walls of our lives seem to be caving in like an under-baked gingerbread house. As it is with every other aspect in life, Jesus is our model. Better yet, He is also the power behind any move toward His model.
Not only did He take our place on the Cross and bear our sins (everything we do, think or say that goes against God), He also lived our lives. Prior to His amazing, gracious work on the Cross, He faced trials and temptations just like we do, yet even more so. However, we know He did it all and still did not sin. As our perfect substitution, He endured temptations in every respect and remained sinless (see Hebrews 4:15). He achieved what is humanly impossible in that He bore the sins of all who would believe in Him (and thus absolve God’s righteous wrath toward them), and He, personally, remained without sin (see 2 Corinthians 5:21). Only because of His divine nature could He accomplish such feats.
Though entirely divine, He took on flesh to be both God and man so that He could take our place on the Cross and reconcile us with the holy God (see Romans 5:10 and Colossians 1:19-20). It’s difficult to wrap our finite human minds around (why and how something so glorious could happen), but Jesus did it nonetheless.
He came to this world to save us, and He came to show Himself as our ultimate Empathizer. His actions say, “These are My people. I want to feel and experience everything they do,” including loss, pain, exhaustion and anger. He became our substitution and empathizer, but what’s more, He also gave us the Holy Spirit as our Helper (see John 14:16).
He came to this world to save us, and He came to show Himself as our ultimate Empathizer.
The Spirit reminds us of God’s Word and empowers us to live according to our new identities as redeemed children of God (see John 14:26 and 2 Cor. 3:18), amongst other things.
So, if you’re counting, that is four things Jesus is to us:
God
Substitution/Savior
Empathizer
Model/Teacher
Not an exhaustive list (not even close), but certainly enough to consider for the moment, with the third role being our focus in this post.
Jesus modeled for us the solution to selfishness (pride), as well as despair and confusion. We see it in His public life (His interactions with friends, family, travelers and opponents), but especially in His prayer life. The time He spent with the Father.
When we think of Jesus praying, many of us immediately call to mind what has been coined as the Lord’s Prayer, as found in Matthew 6:9-13 (see also Luke 11:2-4). This teaching stemmed from the disciples’ request for Jesus to teach them how to pray, like John the Baptist did with his followers. Jesus Himself would not have prayed this exact prayer because in it, the speaker asks the Father to forgive his/her sins. And since Jesus never sinned, He never would have made such a request. Therefore, the Lord’s Prayer is the model Jesus gave His followers (then and now) on how to pray.
It’s not a special formula or stagnant mantra, but a structure for us to use to posture our hearts toward God and incline our ears to His lips. Because that is what prayer is: union with God. God is the focus, not us, and that is what Jesus demonstrates here.
How does He begin? “‘Our Father in heaven, hallowed be Your name. Your kingdom come, Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven” (Matt. 6:9-10, emphasis added).
This is the key to all of life’s problems, including pride and despair (another form of pride).
Look up! Fix your spiritual gaze on the One who is above all things. You do not literally need to lift your eyes, but you certainly can. Head position is insignificant next to heart position.
There is nothing wrong with bowing your head to pray, the common posture for many American Christians. In His story of the religious leader (Pharisee) and tax collector, Jesus commended the latter for his humble approach before God (bowed head) over that of the religious leader who lifted his eyes and beat his breast (see Luke 18:1-14). The latter recognized he was unworthy of God’s grace while the former flaunted his “good” works, as if they deemed him honorable and above his fellow man. Head position was completely different, but so were their heart positions.
Head position is insignificant next to heart position.
There is also nothing wrong with keeping or lifting your head up when you pray. In fact, this is a posture we see Jesus take in His prayers. Again, the position of our head is secondary, at most, to our heart position when we pray. You may always bow your head, you may always lift it. Maybe you do a combination of the two. Regardless of what you do, always make sure your heart is right before God and allow the Holy Spirit to guide the rest of you.
When it comes to lifting our heads though, Jesus demonstrates a beautiful concept: Look up! Whether it be literally or figuratively, lift your gaze. When you pray, look up! When you don’t know what to pray, look up! When you’re anxious, disheartened, frustrated or desperate, look up! When you’re joyful, excited, expectant or grateful, look up! When you’re tempted, look up! When you’re victorious, look up! Follow Jesus’ example and look up!
“‘But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things (basic needs like food and clothing) will be added to you’” (Matt. 6:33).
“...as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal” (2 Cor. 4:18).
“‘Father, if You are willing, remove this cup (the Father’s wrath toward sin that Jesus came to bear) from Me (Jesus). Nevertheless, not My will, but Yours, be done’” (Luke 22:42).
When our hearts are properly positioned before the Lord, we tell Him and ourselves that we are open to His instruction, correction and affirmation. We go before Him and profess, “You, God, must increase, and I must decrease” (see John 3:20). We declare to the world, “God is greater than I, and my life is His, not mine.”
Such thoughts come most readily when we pray because, again, prayer is union with God. It is His vessel to mold our will to reflect His perfect will. During this precious communion time, God transforms us by the renewal of our minds (see Rom. 12:2). It is also when the Spirit lifts our gazes to behold more of the Lord’s glory.
When you lift your spiritual gaze (regardless if your head follows), it reminds you of three things:
Who is in control
Who is for you
Who it is about
I believe this is one of the reasons Scripture mentions several times that Jesus lifted His head in prayer, both in times of celebration and tribulation (see Mark 7:34 and John 11:41). He did it before He fed 5,000 people (which was closer to at least 10-15,000, when counting women and children) with a boy’s sack lunch (Luke 9:16, see also Matt. 14:19 and Mark 6:41). He also did it before He faced the darkest hour of all time: the Cross. When Jesus agonized over His impending time on the Cross and separation from the Father (a consequence of sin), John tells us He lifted His head, “When Jesus had spoken these words, He lifted up His eyes to heaven and said, ‘Father, the hour has come, glorify Your Son that the Son may glorify You’” (17:1, emphasis added).
As He sweat blood at the thought of bearing all God’s wrath toward sin and thus separation from the Father, Jesus lifted His head and soul to His Father. There in the Garden of Gethsemane, He modeled with His head and words, “Not My will, but Your will, Father. Your Kingdom come, Your will be done.”
Jesus faced the biggest problem—that of sin and its required punishment—with eyes open and lifted.
When we navel-gaze, we block our heart's eye from beholding the vastness of God.
When we look up, we remember the One who is in control and just how big He is. When we navel-gaze, we block our heart’s eye from beholding the vastness of God. Suddenly our problems seem big, but that’s only because our inward gaze impedes us from God’s magnificence. As the saying goes:
Big problems = small God
Big God = small problems
In other words, if your problems seem too big for God, your perspective of God is too small. But when you trust in the all-powerful God, any problems seem small in comparison. It’s what Paul talked about in Romans 8 when he said:
“What shall we say to these things (trials and persecution)? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare His own Son but gave Him up for us all, how will He not also with Him graciously give to us all things?...Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword?...No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord” (vv. 31-32, 35, 37-39).
A lifted gaze gets us to take our eyes and hands off our situations and fixed on the One who holds them in the palm of His hand. It re-centers us and reminds us to breathe as we look to our Lord, Yahweh. The One Whose very name orchestrates our breath.
Try it with me. Audibly breathe in. Now breathe out.
What do you hear? Do it again, louder this time. Emphasize the motion to magnify the sound and listen with your soul.
Inhale…exhale.
Did you hear it? When we breathe, we speak the name of God.
Inhale…Yah-...exhale…-weh.
One of my favorite Bible passages that illustrates the effect of a lifted gaze is recorded in Matthew 17 (see also Mark 9:2-8 and Luke 9:28-36). Jesus had just given Peter, James and John a further glimpse of His glory in what’s called the Transfiguration. The Father also audibly spoke to those present and attested to Jesus’ divine nature when He said, “‘This is My beloved Son, with Whom I am well pleased; listen to Him’” (v. 5).
As is the case when humans experience a divine encounter (see Ezekiel 1:28, Daniel 10:10 and Revelation 1:17), the three disciples drop to their knees in fear, moved by God’s magnificent holiness. With their eyes still closed and knees shaking against the dirt, Jesus walks up to the three men, touches them and says, “‘Rise, and have no fear’” (v. 7). Matthew then goes on to tell us that “when they (Peter, James and John) lifted up their eyes, they saw no one but Jesus only” (v. 8, emphasis added).
That, my friend, is what happens when we lift our gaze. We see Jesus only! He opens our eyes to the true prize of life: Him. He aligns our hearts to seek the perfect will: His. He calms our fears and renews our perspectives. He gives us wisdom in times of decision and confusion, and He bestows peace in times of turmoil. He strengthens us with power in the midst of trial and quickens our steps in obedience.
So the next time you find yourself navel-gazing, whether it be in despair or pride, look up! Proclaim with the psalmist, “I lift up my eyes to the hills. From where does my help come? My help comes from the LORD, who made heaven and earth” (Psalm 121:1-2).
References:
English Standard Version Bible. (2001). Crossway Bibles.
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