“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.”
(Colossians 3:1-4 – NLT)
I was reading through this passage recently, and I was struck anew by the phraseology that I’ve highlighted above in bold. This is definitely one of those concepts that I know I’m not appreciating to its full extent in my daily life.
Though I whole-heartedly believe that we were created with a spiritual aspect to our being, and that our spirituality is a critical component to what separates us from the rest of creation, I often struggle to actually VIEW the world in this way.
In Genesis we are told that “God created human beings in his own image. In the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.” Obviously, this is not insinuating that God is a bipedal mammal, constrained to a physical form, and he made us to look like him. We were “created like God” in that we have a spirit within us; a spirit that is capable of engaging with our Creator, who is himself a spirit.
I get all that in THEORY, but to be honest, I’d say I probably tend to view the whole physical/spiritual relationship that exists within my personhood as a 90/10 split. Yes, I’m a spiritual creature, but I’m MOSTLY physical. That’s how I often think about things. But that’s NOT how the Bible often speaks on the subject.
Like in the passage above: “Set your sights on the REALITIES of heaven…for your REAL life is hidden with Christ in God.” True reality is found in a SPIRITUAL dimension (heaven)? My REAL life is found in the spiritual side of my being? Kind of an odd claim considering that it REALLY seems to me like my reality is currently sitting on a couch and that my real life is typing away on my laptop…
And it’s not like this is just some obscure theological consideration. This type of language is used all over the place in Scripture. I mean, the first HALF of the book of Ephesians speaks almost exclusively to the newfound spiritual realities that exist for those who have put their faith in Christ! So, what’s the deal? Why is my typical outlook on the make-up of reality inconsistent with the typical description of the SAME reality as God talks about it?
After giving it some thought, I’m inclined to say that it is probably more of a matter of perspective than it is a conflict of two opposing thoughts. I’ll try to explain.
As a friend of mine has been helping me build this website, we have been discussing the configuration of the layout and the content. As we have been engaging with this project, we have often talked about the “front” of the website vs. the “back” of the website. The front of the site is the nice, clean, simple version that you are interfacing with right now. It’s a real thing. You can see it, navigate it, interact with it. You can even leave comments on it.1
But what you are seeing is NOT actually the website – it’s just a simplified representation of a bunch of data that you CAN’T see. There is a whole invisible (to you) landscape on MY side of the website that is impacting what you see on your side. My side has all of the formatting, the hyperlinks, and the coding that dictates how things work for you on your end. What you are seeing right now is SIMILAR to what I see on the back side, but it’s only a low resolution version of the reality of what the site truly is.
I’m thinking that’s probably a lot like how my experience with the created universe is. What I’m engaging with on a daily basis is tangible and real, but it’s not the FULL reality. There is a LOT more going on that is currently hidden from my view. And God is imploring me to open my mind to the existence of that (for now) hidden reality. He is calling me to live in such a way that I’m acknowledging that there is more at play than what I am seeing, touching, hearing, smelling, & tasting.
Not only is there more at play, but the world that is currently invisible to me is actually MORE real than the simplified version I’m physically engaging with right now. The more I fix my mind’s eye on the unseen realm from which God is communicating, the better I will be able to align myself with the true nature of “life, the universe, and everything”2. And the better I align myself with how things are working on the “backside of the website,” the more effectively I will be able to function in my interactions with the front side.
And so, Paul’s exhortation to “think about the things of heaven” is not a call to daydream about a reality that someday will be, but rather an encouragement to dwell on the spiritual reality that I am ALREADY a part of. Because it is THAT spiritual reality in which my true personhood is actually defined and realized.
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