Today is beautiful. It didn't start out so. Hmm....It did. I didn't see the beauty though. One cannot see beauty when blinded by circumstance! Humbling thought, eh?
In fact, now that I consider it, I have missed alot of beauty and truth lately. How dreadful to be caught up in our own miserable worlds instead of Christ.....or maybe the dreadfulness is making our world anything but Christ!!!!!
I suppose when one looks at an object, all the things around-anything but that single object, are out of focus. So if our "object" is Christ, then circumstances and the world are out of focus, blurred, irrelevant. But when our focus shifts....Christ cannot be clear when we are staring at things of this world. Oy!!!
So, that's where I've been of late. Lost in my circumstances and thus not seeing my Savior on His throne and me in Him. In turn, I have not seen circumstances for what they are - temporary, which I am NOT bound by or to. Circumstances do not bind the believer. We are hidden far above this place, in Christ at the right hand of the Father. We are free. We are conquerors. Whether we clear our debt, whether a doctor can give this weary body answers, whether all the things in my life work out......it matters not. Unless I choose it. If that is my focus, then I suppose I enslave myself, for I lay my life on the line of the outcome. But God forbid that ever be so!!!! The moment I look to Christ, who has come to save me "from this present evil age", it matter not a bit what comes of my life's circumstance. For I have Him, whom I cannot lose. I have a home with eternal foundations. And this world and all it holds, this life and the circumstances that come and go, they can only deepen my in Christ, show me HIS victory, conform me to His image, remind me that it is "not I, but Christ" who lives, that this flesh is mortal and our only life is "that the life of Jesus may be manifested in this mortal body". And this world's worst case scenario - death, can only free me to have not a single hindrance in loving my Beloved, my Life, my Savior. And the world's best case scenarios can only free me from stress to have the time to fall madly in love with Him. Why, oh Why do we let this world's concerns govern our time and thoughts??? We are called to a higher calling, touched with a diviner Spirit, as Amy Carmichael once said! We have so MUCH MORE than this world can ever offer. It's best or it's worst...who cares. What would our lives become if every waking thought were to be how we can know Christ and serve Him? How beautiful it would be. How free we would feel. The circumstances that consume our thoughts and burden our hearts and keep us from intimacy with Him....are they only as powerful as our choice, however much we focus on then is how much power they have?
Oh friend!!! Today is a new day. When "we walk in the light, as HE is in the light, we have fellowship with one another and the blood of Jesus Christ, His Son, cleanses us from ALL". This is a new moment. Let us be "partakers of the divine nature", as we are called....as we ARE. Let's live lives that are far beyond the bounds of this world. And the circumstances that DO come, let them be worthwhile, worthy of our time......as we look to Christ, let trial and circumstance send us running to Him, falling at His feet, diving into His truth and letting Him live HIS life in us. If today shows my weakness, praise God, for that is when HIS power is made perfect in me. His power made perfect!!!!! not in heaven, but in ME!!!! His life manifested, not in angels or the strong or the rich or the healthy or the perfect, but in THIS mortal flesh.
Let's live worthy of our calling!

(see: Col 3:1-3; Ro 8:37; Gal 1:4; Gal 2:20; 2 Co 4:8-11; 1Jn 1:7; Eph 4:1; Ps 143:4-6)