Every year I ask God to guide me to a verse I need to focus on for the year. As I anticipate what life will be like in Zambia, I realize I must keep my eyes on God. It is not going to be the same as only being there for 2 weeks, 3 weeks or a month. In my quiet time with God this month, He led me to this verse. My verse for the year.
Colossians 3:1- “Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God.”
There we go. Christ is supreme and is raised and is sitting at the right hand of God. That is where my heart and mind must be set. That truth alone should be enough to keep me focused. Focused on Jesus. On not only my Savior but Lord. On the One who created heaven and earth and is sovereign and holy. On the One who chose to raise me from death to life. The One who brought me from darkness to light. The One who has hidden my life in His. This is profound.
So, when we are stranded on the road because an axle broke on our car, or the water isn’t running, or a dust storm whipped buckets of Zambian red dirt into my house, or a snake has bitten one of our animals (or one of us), or a girl in our community is abused, or I am robbed (or worse), or one of my precious friends in Chibolya loses a baby, or our ministry team is struggling, or there are set-backs in a project that was moving forward, I will keep my heart and my mind set on Jesus. And I will remember that my life, which is His to begin with, is fully known and acknowledged in the very life He lived on earth and does live now at the right hand of God. It is safe and secure. He knows it all and wants my response to be to be Christlike, because I have set my heart and mind on things above and I know where my life is tucked away. Therefore, I can not set my mind on earthly things. I must die to those thoughts and the desires that breed from even one stray moment.
Lord, In this, we need You, Your Holy Spirit to take over and empower us to make right choices for right living, through right thinking, as we pursue a life hidden in you! Hidden so only You, Lord are visible, not me.
