“To you, I lift up my eyes, are you who are in throne in the heavens.”
– Psalm 123:1
As soon as I read this Psalm 123:1 I just think about one of my favorite hymns from the past. It’s so simple. It just says the same words over and over again. “Turn your eyes upon Jesus. Look full in his wonderful face and the things of Earth will grow strangely dim in the light of his glory and grace.” I think that’s exactly what Psalm 123:1 is calling us to do, to lift up our eyes, to see the one who is enthroned in the heavens, to see him in all of his glory. Like our perspective on this world, our perspective on what matters in the world, our perspective on everything in our lives changes when we see it in the light of God. In the light of his glory and his grace.
Psalm 123:1 Reminds Us to Change Our Perspective
Lord, amid whatever is going on in our lives may we look to You, knowing our help comes from the Lord.
That’s exactly what Psalm 123:1 goes on to talk about. He says, “As our eyes look to you, we know that you will have mercy on us.” Like when we are walking through dark difficult times, hard times, to look up, to look up from the valley and to see the God who has all power in all of his glory, and to realize that he is merciful and gracious. That he will help us get through this valley.
Lift up your eyes, especially if you’re in a valley right now and see the God of glory and grace who is your help. And even when we’re in at the mountain top or when walking through highs in this life, to look up and see God in all of his glory and to realize you’re on that mountain top, that you’re experiencing something good because of his grace.
Psalm 123:1 Reminds Us God Is In Control
That you didn’t get there on your own. This didn’t just happen out of nowhere. This happened in the light of God’s glory and grace, obviously manifested most clearly in Jesus who came to us, who showed us God in the flesh before our eyes who lived among us, died for us, rose from the dead, ascended into heaven, is right now at the father’s right hand.
Oh God. We lift up our eyes to you, our father, Jesus at the right hand of the father, we lift up our eyes to you. We turn our eyes upon you amidst whatever is going on in our lives right now. So we just pause and we look to you and everything changes. And we look to you and we love you. Also, we worship you. We have a whole different perspective on everything in our lives.
This Verse Leads Us to Praise God
God, for those of us who are in the middle of valleys right now, we look to you and we say, where does our help come from? Our help comes from the Lord, the maker of heaven and earth. Our eyes are looking to you. We need you. God, for those who are on the mountain top right now, just enjoying your grace and just good things around them. God, we look to you and we acknowledge you’re the one who’s the author of all these good things. We praise you for them. We pray that you’d help us to enjoy them to your glory. God, in whatever situation, circumstance we find ourselves in, we look to you and we worship and we praise you and we thank you.
We say that we need you. And we pray that you’d help us to do everything we do in the middle of whatever circumstances we find ourselves in. Help us to do it all in the light of your glory and grace. Help us to fix our eyes on you in all that we do. Seeing everything in the light of your glory and grace help us to live like this with our eyes turned to you today. In Jesus name we pray. Amen.
David Platt serves as a pastor in metro Washington, D.C. He is the founder of Radical.
David received his Ph.D. from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary and is the author of Don’t Hold Back, Radical, Follow Me, Counter Culture, Something Needs to Change, Before You Vote, as well as the multiple volumes of the Christ-Centered Exposition Commentary series.
Along with his wife and children, he lives in the Washington, D.C. metro area.
