...if indeed you continue in faith, stable and steadfast, not shifting from the hope of the gospel that you heard... Colossians 1:23
It's this little part of a verse that got me. If you hang out here, you know I've been stuck on hope lately.
It's the word shifting that got me. I know where my hope belongs, but sometimes it subtly shifts. Do you feel that?
I don't mean it, it just seems to happen. I shift, and I suddenly put too much weight in things that don't really matter. The vacation falls through and my hopes are dashed...shift. One of my kids gets sick and the plans I made are on hold...shift. My dream job fell through...shift. Someone I love stopped loving me...shift. When these things happen we realize our hope was a lot more earthbound than we thought.
If I am honest it isn't the "big things" that can send my hope crashing to the floor.
The amount of frustration and annoyance I can show over disappointments or delays reveals how much I have let my hope settle on earth.
At the same time, putting all my hope in heaven, a place I haven't even seen, seems impossible. It's okay. God gets that we are earthbound that we are tied up here by cares and concerns that entangle us, but He wants us to remember that we are also heave bound. He knows we have to wrestle for this and that it doesn't come easy to us. His grace makes me want to try harder to see past earth. I want to keep one foot in heaven and lean my weight into what matters. It's like we are standing over a great divide one foot in heaven and one still on earth. I want to practice leaning my weight into that foot in heaven and watch how my hope shifts to follow.
We don’t have to live our best life here, our best life is later.
I remember, and remembering , I keep a grip on hope. Lamentations 3:21
Remembering...that's the key. When I remember Jesus, when I rehearse the truth and replay the big and little miracles of my life, remembering tightens my grip.
This doesn’t mean that I don’t enjoy now, because God didn’t create all of this beauty and good on earth so that I didn’t enjoy it, but that it would point to where Hope really belongs….in Him.
I want to be this flower.
When we choose to put our hope in heaven, we are just like this flower planted in the concrete. Our whole self pointing to the fact that we don't belong here, but we are blooming anyway.
We live in an imperfect world, but we weren't created for imperfection. It wasn't supposed to be like this, and deep inside out hearts know it. We long for perfection because God set eternity in our hearts (Ecclesiastes 3:11)
God, help me direct my longing toward heaven because that is where it was intended. When earth disappoints, let me remember that it isn't where I'm setting my hope. Help me shift my thoughts and the weight of my days into the foot planted firmly in eternity and let me feel the stability.
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