Eyes Up: 5 Days of Learning to Trust God’s Heart by Tracing His Hand Sýnishorn

I scrolled past the picture-perfect photo of a woman with her family on Instagram and just about threw my phone. No, I'm serious. I was mindlessly scrolling as I waited to check out at a store in the mall. My kids were exhausted from the day. I double-tapped the picture because I somehow want to prove to myself that just for a second, I was not the bitter woman who couldn't stand to see someone else happy.

"How wildly unrelatable," I thought. “She doesn’t get it.”

But was it this women's job to be the space where I found comfort? Did I need to only see the unraveling of someone's life to feel like they could relate to mine? I suppose that, deep down, I wanted to know that others around me were experiencing the same nightmare of a season as I was, the rejection, the marital pain, the lack of clarity and direction in my season of life, the deep sense of unworthiness.

I don't think I was jealous of her life. Rather, I believe the picture evoked the nagging feeling that I most certainly did not have much of anything together. That my efforts to present myself anything other than tidy came up empty. We spend so much of our time looking to relate and be seen by others, understanding, for acceptance, to quickly find that no one can ever meet us the way our souls beckon for it, that no amount of empathy can heal the depth of our wounds or fill the void to be understood. And often, we rely on the circumstantial temperature of life to help us gauge how our hearts and minds should feel and be. But what if we could find a better thermometer?

Friend, we can. Because here’s the deal: where that woman on Instagram can’t possibly understand every single thing I’m facing, Jesus can.

In Hebrews 4, Jesus is described as our "great high priest" who has the power to take his rightful place in the heavens because He’s unique.

Because Jesus is not just God, but God in the flesh, he has not only made it possible for God to be understandable to us but for our daily issues to be physically and actually understandable to Him. In other words, He’s relatable. He knows what it’s like to be us. He is not only an "up there" or "out there" God. He’s also a God who came here, who comes close.

Friend, hear this: Whatever it is, Jesus gets it. He is with you and for you and came to give you a way forward because he knew what your situation was like and He couldn’t bear to not walk through it by your side.

Jesus is your God, high and lifted up above you, and He’s also your brother-human in the flesh right by your side. He is both, and there is no other God like that. The One who’s God and the One who gets it. To what better place or person could you possibly lift your eyes?