The higher I try to climb, the faster I slide down. When I am seeking to get higher and higher, there is one thing I am certain of, I will never get where I want to go. Jesus taught that whoever will be first will be last, and the last will be first (Mt 19:30). And when addressing his disciples, he taught them that “whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first among you must be your slave” (Mt 20:26-27 HCSB). Just the idea of trying to be great on our own is self-defeating, because we never can be. Especially if one considers the position of being Jesus’ disciple. No disciple was ever also the leader. But isn’t that exactly the struggle so many of us face? Don’t we often try so hard to make it on our own and “touch the sky” with our own abilities, our own talent….but we never do, nor can we ever. We want to say that we are doing something for a good purpose or for a good cause, but most often we do things simply because we want to do them for ourselves.

Jesus said that “anyone finding his life will lose it, and anyone losing his life because of me will find it” (Mt 10 39 HCSB). One particular phrase in this song really spoke to my heart: “I found my life when I laid it down.” This simple lyric captures the essence of what it means to find life….it means to give it up. It means for us to stop living for ourselves. Instead, for us to touch the sky, we must bend our knees to the ground. We must get off the throne. We must give up what we want to seek, who we want to be, and everything that we pursue to feed our desires and ambitions. How can we be “upward falling” if we are constantly working to climb and rise higher on our own. In the truest sense, bowing down and turning over ourselves to the Lord and following him is the only way to truly rise higher. Whereas dropping to your knees is often seen as a sign of defeat, it actually signifies our victory. Jesus has already won and that victory is found at his feet.

The bridge of this song has become a powerful and transformative anthem in my life. Every time I consider why I am doing what I am doing, I consider whether or not I am at the feet of the Master with everything that I am.

“Find me here at Your feet again
Everything I am, reaching out, I surrender”

If we can find our place at his feet, if we can surrender all that we are and stop attempting to climb on our own and find our way to the top, if we can just see that Jesus has brought us into the kingdom of heaven and following him is the only way we can “touch the sky,” then we will find peace and rest and soar higher than we ever have or ever could….and our souls will “dance on the wings of forever.”

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