There Is Lifting Up


When they are cast down, then thou shalt say, There is lifting up--Job 22: 29.

A young man in the submarine service in World War II wrote these lines:

It want up.
It’s dark down here!
It’s quiet down here!
It’s lonely down here!
No light. Just the glow of emergency bulbs.
No noise. Just the ebb and flow of air in our lungs.
No talking. But a lot of thinking.
We’re on the bottom . . .
Somehow, sweating it out down here
In the cold and the dark and the fear,
It seems to me I get things straighter than I used to,
I want this war over quick, and when it’s over,
I want up!
That’s what I’m fighting for--up!

When I read the lines I thought of the verse quoted from Job. The verse has been rendered, “When the paths are made low, then thou shalt say, Up.” But I prefer the reading, “There is lifting up.” When we are down in the bottom places of life, “in the cold and the dark and the fear,” we should fight and encourage ourselves by saying, “Up.” But that’s not enough. We need the faith that says, “There is lifting up.” We need to look to a source of strength above and beyond ourselves, and that source is God.

“Thou has in love lifted my soul out of the pit” (Isa. 38: 17).

“He brought me up out of a horrible pit, out of the miry clay” (Ps. 40: 2).

We often hear it said that God helps those who help themselves. But there is so much I cannot do for myself but which God can do for me, and will do if I am willing and trust Him. I can always look to Him and say, “There is lifting up.”