When you are in a well the best view is up. You can look at the mud at the bottom of the well, but that’s just plain depressing. You can focus on the barren walls that have no foothold and that is discouraging. But looking up can help you see a lot of things. It helps you to see God. You know too often God is an afterthought in the good life. When everything is going well, you have a great job, healthy kids, a loving spouse, you kind of figure that you deserve it. After all you are a nice person, you’ve worked hard. But when things take a turn for the worse, you lose your job, your kids get sick, or your marriage starts to fail then it’s a horse of a different color. Then you have God on speed dial.
Sometimes it takes a turn for the worse in order for us to discover the truth that David acknowledged in Psalm 121:1, 2 when he said, "I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help. My help cometh from the Lord, which made heaven and earth."
And so if being at the bottom of the well teaches us to rely on God then it’s a cheap lesson. But looking up also causes us to see beyond the present reality to a preferred future. It’s easy when you are in the well to look around at the dark walls and the murky bottom and think: this is it, it will never get any better I might as well just give up and die. But if you look up you see the blue of the sky above. You can look beyond the bottom of the well and beyond the walls and see where you could be and should be. Visualize what it will be like to be out of the pit, walking around enjoying the sunshine and getting on with life. You can’t dwell on the negative forever, so look up. Things will change is you trust God.
Philippians 4:8 "Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things."
There are worse places to be then at the bottom of the well. When you look down and see the ground let it remind you that you are still on the right side of the grass. I tell people if when you look in the mirror in the morning and there’s someone looking back that’s not a bad way to start the day.
Matthew Henry was an English preacher and Author in the late 1600s one day while travelling he was robbed and I love what he said in response to his misfortune “I thank Thee first because I was never robbed before; second, because although they took my purse they did not take my life; third, because although they took my all, it was not much; and fourth because it was I who was robbed, and not I who robbed.”
Remember it could always be worse.
While Jeremiah’s at the bottom of the well no doubt wondering if anyone cares about him there is someone who is going to bat for him. Ebed-melech a high official in the court heard what had happened to Jeremiah and goes to the king and says you can’t allow this to happen, and the King arranges for Jeremiah to be pulled from the pit. It’s when you are down that you find out who your friends really are.
It’s always disappointing to find out who doesn’t stick with you, but at least you know where you stand. But it is so refreshing to know that there are people who will stick with you through thick and thin. And if there are no friends waiting for you at the top of the well keep in mind Jesus’ words in John 15:15 "Henceforth I call you not servants; for the servant knoweth not what his lord doeth: but I have called you friends; for all things that I have heard of my Father I have made known unto you."
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