Just the other day, as a matter of fact just yesterday, I had something happen to me and I learned a valuable lesson. I had purchased an air mattress and bed sheets and other things to accommodate a friend who was coming to my place for the weekend. It all amounted to $99 and some odd change in all – basically $100. He was going to be the guest speaker for youth day at my church and I was really excited about him coming and so were the church folk. Well, due to circumstances out of our hands he had to cancel.
Needless to say, here I had about $100’s worth of stuff that I didn’t particularly need just sitting around. And they were all still freshly packed and unopened. I could even make the case that for immediate purposes, the stuff was holding up funds that could be put to better use for something else. And so like any average Wal-Mart customer, I made up my mind to return the stuff and get my money back. I got my receipt and put it in my pocket and headed out the door to Wally World.
On my way out of my apartment, I was engaged in a phone conversation with my dad. And before I got to my car, a neighbor asked if I had some tools that he could use to change a belt on his car. I turned around and went back into my apartment and retrieved my toolbox and gave it to him while still on the phone with my dad. Finally I got into my car and headed for Wal-Mart. Upon arriving at Wal-Mart, I got out of the car ready to get the merchandise. I went into my pockets, no receipt. I searched my car, underneath and between the seats, the merchandise bags and all that, but came up with nothing. Went back to my apartment, saw my neighbor still working on his car, I asked him if I’d handed him a receipt, he replied, “No.” I searched around our lot, I retraced my steps, I searched my apartment, no receipt. By now half an hour had gone by and I was in a storm. Finally I resolved to just return the stuff and take store credit instead of cash back or having the funds returned to my bank card. I got out of the car at Wally World and searched my car again but changed my mind and returned to my apartment. I couldn’t see the purpose of a $100 Wally World card. And believed against hope that I would somehow find my receipt.
Upon returning to my apartment and searching my car and my apartment one more time, I turned up with nothing. My resolve was all but broken. It had been hours now and now it was nighttime. Later on, I decided to go to a friend’s house to watch the NBA Playoffs and I got an epiphany, if I can call it that. I was heading to my door to step out and the receipt randomly came to mind. Almost as if it was in panoramic view, the events surrounding my first trip to Wal-Mart came to view. I saw myself getting into my car after getting distracted by my neighbor. And I saw myself take the receipt out of my pocket and pin it with the sun visor above my head. I saw the receipt in my mind pinned there before I even stepped out. It hit me like a ton of bricks. “All you had to do was look up!” Upon getting to my car, indeed there was the said receipt, pinned to the ceiling of my car by the sun visor. All I had to do was look up!
Often in life, we carry around unnecessary stuff. We long to get rid of it but distractions take away our mindfulness and we forget the process of how to get rid of all the unnecessary baggage and sin in our lives. People distract us, our mindlessness distracts us, and we lose our way. We search and search but we find nothing and come up empty. We get impatient and angry and all bent out of shape in our quest, but still come up empty. Then finally it hits us, “Look up!” If we would look up, we would see a receipt of heavenly proportions that would enable us to get rid of that stuff we don’t need, that stuff that’s depleting our spiritual bank, that stuff that's taking up space in our souls, that stuff that has no practical spiritual use for us! If we looked up more often we would see Jesus! Jesus paid it all, all to Him I owe, sin had left a crimson stain, He washed it white as snow! Look up! Jesus said, “And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up” (John 3:14). He said again, “When you lift up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am He, and I do nothing on My own initiative, but I speak these things as the Father taught Me” (John 8:28) and again, “And I, if I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all men to Myself” (John 12:32). Because He was lifted up on that old rugged cross, I am free! Because He was lifted up on that old rugged cross, I am without debt to sin! Because He was lifted up on that old rugged cross, I can look and live! If only I would look up!
-Samuel Jeudin
Hobbies: Reading (especially Black History), Barbering, Bass, Baking, Collecting Bow ties...Soon Photography
He is passionate about music, worship and people.
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