In January 1945, my father, Richard Bush, enlisted in the Navy halfway through his senior year in high school. He was 17, so his parents had to sign for him when he registered. He eventually became a signalman on an old Liberty ship called the USS Rotanin. (Dad said they called her the “Rotten Annie.”) Dad used to talk about standing watch at night and seeing the dim outline of a ship in the distance. He’d been taught not to stare at it directly, because if you looked just above the ship, the rods in your eyes will help bring the ship’s silhouette into focus so that you can identify it as a friend or a foe.
As I write this essay, there are a lot of different topics I could focus on. There are the political conventions, the Olympics in Rio, the continued aftershocks from the Orlando shootings in a gay nightclub, the sad details of more police killings of black men plus the sniper attack in Dallas, and a host of global issues from Brexit to bombings in Bangladesh. Any one of those topics merits our direct attention. Many of them should evoke in us prayers of confession, spirits of contrition, and a spiritual re-commitment to work for justice for all.
The news media and social media remind us of all the things we should focus on and seek to make right in our troubled world. But at some point we need to lift our gaze just slightly higher—above the horizon, heavenward—so that we can see farther and clearer. We are to look at what’s before us against the backdrop of what is yet to come—allowing our gaze to extend toward the horizon of God’s realm of peace and justice. We do this, not to avoid the hard reality of today, but to compare it against the promised kingdom of God’s righteousness, so that we can clearly understand what still needs to be done today. Doing so helps us remember that black lives matter, that justice delayed is justice denied, and that as we have done to the least of these in Christ’s family, we have done it to Him.
“I lift up my eyes to the hills—from where will my help come? My help comes from the Lord, who made heaven and earth”—Psalm 121. In our trouble world, there is much we need to look at directly, so that we can repent of what must no longer be allowed to continue. But by lifting our gaze slightly, seeking the One who is our strength and our salvation, we will see more clearly what must be done in this life, even as we prepare for the life to come. Thanks be to God!