Okay… it’s been a while! I can’t remember my last Mantra Monday post… and to be honest, today’s almost didn’t happen. While the rest of the creative world regularly reminds us just how “dead” blogging is, part of me just wants to prove everyone wrong and keep blogging anyway! Of course, there’s only so much time in a day and while I’m technically running 3 businesses that would all benefit from blogging here, it’s all to easy to let this task fall to the wayside. I still love blogging though and hope to be doing more of it in 2019! There’s something to be said about having a permanent home for your words and photos that isn’t dependent upon an unpredictable social media platform. So, here we are… back to a Mantra Monday post just like old times.
Before I fell asleep last night, I was praying about whether I should blog based on that category today. I was trying to think about what God has taught me lately. That’s how all my old Mantra Monday posts used to come about: Pray about what’s been on my heart lately, then write about it… with some personal details and perspective mixed in. As I was laying there last night, praying about the lesson that’s been loudest in my mind lately, the concept of having an eternal perspective made its way to the forefront of my thoughts. An eternal perspective… it’s a powerful weapon to hold. It puts everything in its place. It tells some voices to sit down while permitting others to enter in. It keeps us grounded. Quiets anxiety. Throws out fear. When you have an eternal perspective, most of our problems just don’t seem all that overwhelming anymore. After all, this is all pretty temporary.
As I drifted off to sleep, a memory came to my mind of a winter trip my 5th grade class took in early 2004. It was 15 years ago almost to the date, actually…
I was so afraid to go on that trip. 3 nights away from my parents as a 10-year-old felt like absolute torture to me. I had anxiety about this retreat for years leading up to it. I knew once I was in 5th grade and January rolled around, I’d be going to Camp Amigo with the rest of my class, and I’d be hours away from my mom and dad and the safety of home. *Cue panic attack.*
It turned out to be some of the best 3 days of my preteen life. I laughed so hard at the TP news that my teacher wrote and read off of actual toilet paper at the end of every night. We made ice cream out of the snow and I could have sworn it was the best, creamiest ice cream I’ve ever had. We went cross country skiing and I laughed SO hard with my best friends as we awkwardly scooted around the hills. We went bird watching; we learned about and collected seeds and plants; we went searching for animal tracks and identified which belonged to who. One of the best nights included tubing down the hillside of the woods, shrouded in almost absolute darkness, with nothing but the clear night sky’s starlight to light the way as we skidded out across the frozen over lake. It was so much fun. I had just learned a valuable lesson: I could survive my anxiety and have fun while doing it. Thinking of that trip and how hard it was to watch my mom pull away after dropping me and my friends off, yet still making it through anyway (and then actually missing it when it was done), would provide the strength I would need to make it through much more difficult, anxiety-producing situations in the years to come.
I learned something else on that trip, one dark, starlit night. We had a walk out into the woods, just a group of about 5 of us, with one of the camp counselors. He was going to teach us about the stars. We all had our own flashlights we’d brought from home, held tightly in mitten-covered hands, tiny balls of yellow light shining this way and that as we hiked out into the frost-bitten woods. We’d been walking for about 5 minutes when the camp counselor said, “Okay, everyone turn your flashlights off.” We stopped and stood in complete darkness. I couldn’t see my hand in front of me for the few seconds it took my eyes to begin to adjust to the lack of light. He held up what looked like a business card, though I couldn’t be sure, because all I could see was the outline of this object he held in his hands. “Does anyone know what this is?” He asked the group. “Definitely not, now that my flashlight is off!” One of the boys in our group jokingly responded. I squinted, then opened my eyes as wide as I could… it was useless. I had no clue what he was holding up, even as he continued to pull out a few more identical cards. He turned our attention to the night sky to begin pointing out the few most famous constellations up above us.
After he’d made his way through Orion, the Big Dipper, the Northern Cross, and Cassiopeia (among a few other favorites), he asked us all to look back down at his hand. There were red, green, yellow, blue, and white pieces of construction papers in his hand, all the same size and shape of the cards he had held up earlier that we all thought were identical. He asked us, “Do you see how your eyes have adjusted now? At first you couldn’t even begin to pick out these colors, and now they are vibrantly bright. If you hadn’t waited, you would have never known. As time goes on, we can see much more.”
I love that the Lord brought this illustration to my mind as I was praying about what to blog… specifically what to blog about having an eternal perspective. It was amazing to me to see those colors come to life from what had previously looked like just a black mass. How were the colors SO vibrant in the dark? Because my eyes had adjusted… because I’d given them the time to learn, to change, to adapt. I was quite literally blind in the moment, though the truth was there all along. The paper never changed colors. I just couldn’t see them until all that time had gone by.
This morning I opened my bible to Colossians 3:1-4. This verse talks about having an eternal perspective: focusing on things above and not on the things of this world. It was exactly what I was looking for to add some depth to my post! However, I’ve learned that copying and pasting Scripture does so much injustice to the incredibly meaningful, life-changing words of the Bible. I wanted to dig a little deeper, so I pulled up the lexicon and started diving into the original Greek of the text. It sounds impressive, but it’s actually really simple. It’s something I do when I want to really, truly grasp what the original writer was saying, before it was translated into different words (often taking on a different meaning in the process). The verse reads:
“Since you have been raised to new life with Christ, set your sights on the realities of heaven, where Christ sits in the place of honor at God’s right hand. Think about the things of heaven, not the things of earth. For you died to this life, and your real life is hidden with Christ in God. And when Christ, who is your life, is revealed to the whole world, you will share in all his glory.”
Okay… sounds a little confusing right? What does it mean to be “raised to new life?” What are the “realities of heaven?” Why is Christ sitting at God’s right hand? How in the world did I “die” to this life? What is my “real life,” and why is it “hidden in Christ?” How is Christ my life? What is this “glory” I will share in? Why does this all sound so weird…?!
This is why I love word studies… it wasn’t MEANT to sound weird! It only sounds weird to us because we aren’t reading it in its original language, in its original context. Here’s what I discovered after diving into the Greek in this text…
If you take the time to read through this… you’ll see how, as we dig deeper, we come to a place of understanding the Scripture so much more. I can see why God brought that story of the colored papers in the dark to my mind.
If I’m only looking at the here and now, I am blind to absolute truth.
Even though I can’t see everything on my own today, I have faith that “tomorrow” holds vastly greater wonders.
In this verse, if I only read the NLT version, “Think about things of heaven,” I would never understand the concept of PHRONEO…. which means something so much deeper than just “thinking.” Phroneo comes from the word phren, the parts around the heart that would moderate and regulate from within. The word Phroneo then becomes a more powerful word picture in this verse… we aren’t just thinking. We are setting our minds and hearts on something that is going to literally change our lives, because it changes everything on the outside as it works on the inside.
Inner perspective reveals itself in corresponding, outward behavior.
Paul is telling us to have our actions determined by (regulated by!) the heavenly perspective we constantly possess. It should come as easily as breathing… as reliably as our own heartbeat.
It is amazing what he goes into next. Paul knows that the word he used meant much more than just “thinking of.” At the very least, Phroneo means to have a deep understanding of, the kind of understanding that changes you. He then tells us that because we have this deep understanding of, a heart/mind dwelling upon things of heaven, our old selves have died (the selves that were regulated by the thoughts of and things of this world) and our NEW selves are concealed – hidden safely away – in Christ. This part is what really hit home for me. The glory and beauty of having this new heavenly perspective is not yet to be seen by the world. We are only promised that when Christ is revealed, our new selves will be revealed as well, and then we will share in the GLORY of that moment with Christ. What does glory mean? Glory refers to something that “evokes good opinion.” In other words… glory means gaining the approval of others and, ultimately, God.
We are not meant to have that glory yet.
We have not yet received approval.
If you’re anything like me… that truth bomb might bring you to tears. Especially on a hard day. So many of us constantly feel like we are not worthy. It just never feels like “enough.” Enough space, enough success, enough recognition, enough likes or followers, enough friends, enough impact, enough legacy… some of these things can be so, so good. But what Paul is revealing to us here is that our heart should not be set on those things, even if they are GOOD in and of themselves, our hearts should be set on heavenly things. We need a heavenly perspective to keep us grounded here in this world that wants to pull us in a million and one directions. A heavenly perspective looks like…
- Caring more about winning souls than winning likes
- Putting more effort into fostering life-giving relationships than damaging, harmful ones
- Truly surrendering our goals and dreams to the Lord… and meaning it when we say we’ll follow Him wherever He leads.
The world tells us what matters most is how successful or impressive you are in several arenas: your career, your salary, your social media presence/impact, your bank account/financial wellness, your outward appearance (car, home, outfits, beauty), and your social circle (how well-liked and widely known you are). Take a step back for a second and ask, “do any of these sound like the things of this world and not the things of heaven?” We might be relieved to find that the answer is yes. God takes the pressure off our backs. He tells us we don’t have to run these races with the mindset to win… we just need to have faith in what he has in store for us in the future.
So often I feel blind to the here and now. Just like that walk in the pitch black forest, I can’t see what’s right in front of me… but time. Time always provides the answers. Paul urges us to walk through life thinking of just how much time lies ahead. We have an eternity waiting for us… and it has already begun.
