“Look straight ahead and fix your eyes on what lies before you.” (Proverbs 4:25 NLT)
The words lit up my phone before I’d even climbed out of bed to face the new year. A proverb passed on from a friend: Solomon’s wisdom still steadying some three thousand years later.
I open my trusty journal and carefully pen the date in the upper right hand corner. 01/01/20. A new year, a new decade. The numbers are all different and I do a quick internal inventory: same me.
So much was new in 2019, I’m still adjusting. I wrote a list in the last few hours of the old year, searching carefully for the highpoint of 2019. Our son, successfully graduated and sent off to college. The birth of my author-blog, a long time dream persuaded into existence by a potential publisher. My own online university enrollment; working nights and weekends to finish the bachelors degree I began twenty-three years ago. Moving across the country and back into youth ministry. Settling into our postage-stamp cottage. I guess I’m not searching for new this year, but looking for time to settle into all the newness that’s already begun.
My friend’s proverb tugs at my heart: “Look straight ahead…” Such wise words to a woman who tends to look around or look back, to compare or cast blame. King Solomon urges us to to let the present fill our sights but Apostle Paul nudges our gaze a bit tighter.
“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.” (Colossians 3:1 NLT)
Yes, I have been raised to new life. I can see it clearly in the dawn of 2020, how this new life is going to require fresh sight, steady vision for the days and years to come.
Together, let’s allow today and tomorrow to fill our vision. Today meaning the precious people and divine purpose in front of us and tomorrow meaning the bright white hope of heaven. This is how we move forward in Kingdom things; leaving the past where it lay and allowing today and tomorrow to fill our field of vision.
“The past is frozen and no longer flows.
The present is all lit up with eternal rays.”
CS Lewis
After so many years in the North; I know what CS Lewis means by frozen and no longer flowing. Trying to dig out something encased underwater in winter months is a futile process for sure. But today, today is lit up with the hope of forever. We can affect these hours with our attitude and expectations.
Lord, give us grace to look forward. Help us put all our hope in You. The past lay behind, frozen solid for sure. But today is still pliable, putty in our hands. Help us show up, look up and trust You for the future to come. We trust in You for all our tomorrows. Amen.