Looking Up

"I want up."

I looked down at the little boy standing by my feet. He was looking at me earnestly, his arms reaching for mine.

"What do you want?" I asked, only partially paying attention as my eyes roamed around the church nursery to make sure that the chaos was organized.

"I want up," he repeated calmly.

"Oh, okay, sure," I said, picking him up into my arms.

"No, up!" he said as I started walking around the room with him.

"You are up, silly!" I tickled his belly, but he remained stoic.

"Up," he said, looking into my eyes and pointing his finger to the ceiling.

I looked up. There, fastened to the ceiling tiles, was a rainbow colored decoration. "Aha. You want to touch it?"

I smiled as he grinned at me. Lifting him up as high as I could, he stretched his little body and tapped a tiny finger at the design. As it started spinning, he clapped his hands.

Then he led me in the direction of the next one.

I hadn't even seen them. All these times of doing nursery duty, and I didn't even notice those decorations once. Yet this little boy, not even half my size, saw it right away.

Why? Because children are used to looking up.

Somewhere along the way, our world becomes less about what's above us and more about what is at our level.

But God wants us to look up. We are His children, and He wants us to reach our hands up to Him, opening ourselves to things we need His help to reach.

When, through Him, we see or learn something that is new, that child-like excitement comes rushing through us.

Delight in its truest form.

"Delight yourself in the LORD and he will give you the desires of your heart." (Psalm 37:4)