Follow the Son

“But You, Lord, are a shield about me, my glory, the one who lifts my head.” (Psalm 3:3 NIV)

I’ve taken to a regular evening walk. Partly because it’s good to get up and move my limbs with purpose and partly because summer is just so short in this part of the world. A brisk 2-3 mile walk just before sunset is both invigorating and beautiful.

Last night, I spotted this giant sunflower with it’s head downcast. This heavy bloom had to be twelve inches in diameter, with it’s crown slipped down as though deeply burdened by the cares of life. I was struck.

Aren’t sunflowers followers of the sun? Yet this giant had somehow given up, exhausted from effort, done in by discouragement.

The sunflower seemed to me to be a metaphor for life. We get worn out. Disappointed. Disillusioned. Distraught. We simply give in to our sorrow and stop following the Son. We stop growing. We stop producing. We stop truly living with full purpose.

Grief can cause this. The loss of a loved one or a broken relationship, the end of a season or the death of a dream can send our head downward. We stop tracking with Jesus and we get stuck. We note the sunflower and see firsthand the urgency in our ‘grieving upward,’ with heads back, searching the sky for our Savior instead of hanging our heads to the ground. It’s ok to be sad, but let’s make sure we are fixing our eyes on Christ even in our sadness – so we don’t lose sight of Him and stop growing altogether.

It turns out that sunflowers have an internal circadian rhythm that tells them just when and where to turn their head. Our souls have that same sort of instinct; we search for Jesus in our situation. We know where our help comes from. But place a sunflower under a constant, fixed light source (or worse, in the dark) and they’ll misplace that rhythm within a few days. Grief will do this to us if we aren’t careful. Grief will shut out the Son altogether if we allow it. We’ll simply hang our heads and start to die from the inside out when we lose our connectivity to Christ for too long. Our souls weren’t created to withstand such a loss. Our lives are meant to grow and bloom under the glory of His affection.

“Why, my soul, are you so downcast? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for yet I will praise Him, my Savior and my God.”
(Psalm 43:3 NIV)

Lord, please give us the courage to cry upward. Help us understand the urgency of staying connected with You, even when we are overwhelmed, discouraged or sad. May we take our concerns to the Source. May we steadily follow You in all the seasons of our lives. Amen.