Lifted Up

         While attending a lecture on "aging" at a local college in the area, an assignment came up where the leader asked us to identify how many assistive devices was in the opening scenes of "Up."    The movie is about an old man who has lost his wife and decides to journey to Brazil via a lot of balloons tied to his house.  In the opening scene, the old man has glasses, hearing aids, a four prong cane and a motorized chair for his stairs.  Now, some years later, I have a cane although not using it a lot, but I bought it for when I will need it.  I have glasses and hearing aids and my favorite one is what I call the "grabber."  It enables me to reach in to the back of the cabinet and get things and also to pick up even the smallest item off of the floor without the danger of falling on my head. Falling on the floor or getting on the floor to pick up something requires a lot of furniture to climb back up on.  So, the "grabber" gets most of the jobs.  In fact I have three of them strategically places throughout the house.  Spiritually speaking, we may find ourselves in need of being lifted up.  Notice the instruction that James gives us.  James 4:10 says, " Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he shall lift you up."
        In the spiritual sense, we get down and need to be lifted up.  It is like the sheep that gets "cast down" and can't get up on its own without the shepherd to help it.  As Philip Keller mentioned, once a sheep gets cast down it will do it again and again.  Sound familiar?    Being cast down for a sheep occurs when it gets on its back in a ditch to scratch its back.  It feels good.  However, it can't get back up due to extra wool and being a tad too big, so it is "cast down."  It felt good to the sheep before, but now has caused a problem which if not soon solved, will result in the blood leaving the legs of the sheep.  This is where the shepherd comes in.  The shepherd gets the sheep out of the ditch and begins to rubs its legs and soon the sheep is back to normal and heads back to where it is supposed to be, that is, for awhile and then it gets "cast down" again.  We are much the same and require our Great Shepherd to lift us up when we get cast down due to being in a ditch on our back with no way to get out except for our Great Shepherd.  Notice that we make our call to the Shepherd by humbling ourselves in the sight of the Lord.  We certainly try to get out on our own, but just can't do it.  Then, the LORD comes along and lifts us up, soothes us and we go on our way until we get "down" again.  Whenever we find ourselves in such a situation as does the sheep, we should be looking and calling our to the Great Shepherd to get us back to normal and what person is there who does not need to be lifted up now and then.  Praise God today that He is there to lift us up.