“Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things.” (Colossians 3:2). What you focus on grows, and the mind has a way of magnifying things depending on what it feeds on. If you focus on your current circumstances, or on your environment and especially if those circumstances or that environment is limiting, you may never move.
There is a difference between being content in whichever season of life (low or high or medium) and settling. Settling or the mentality of having arrived is a dangerous mentality because it almost always invites stagnation. The nature of life is contrary to the mentality of settling or arriving. Seasons change, in one moment it is ploughing, in another it is planting, in another it is weeding, in another it is waiting, in another it is harvesting. And even if some seasons repeat themselves, they rarely ever are the same. They may look similar but they are not the same. For example, no harvest is similar to the next harvest, it differs.
Life is motion, not settling and neither arriving. Life is a journey; it is in motion; it doesn’t necessarily arrive. Other seasons just come along. Therefore, letting present circumstances define you, and the likelihood of them changing is high may not be the wisest of decisions. When you settle or arrive, you stop living and start exist. It’s almost as if, you were on a journey then you abandoned life there, and picked up something else, that isn’t life.
Don’t exchange life or living life with something beneath it like existing. Even animals, though not endowed with certain reasoning capacities like human beings; don’t just exist. They live their life. They do what they were created to do, you don’t see a lion shying away from roaring; it will roar with a roar that could send shivers down your spine. You don’t see a hen shying away from laying an egg because humans will eat it. The outcome is really none of its business that much, it knows that it should lay the hen. You don’t see a cockerel being intimidated not to crow. Chances it will still crow despite being chased away. You don’t see a dog being intimidated not to bark unless you tie its mouth, but even at that before you tie its mouth it will likely bite you. A honey badger; a tiny animal can scare a lion with its noise. It fights back, as tiny as it is compared to a leopard or lion. Why do all these animals mentioned above do what they do, despite the odds? They do it because it is what they were created to do.
Why then do people, who are made in the image of God; in God’s likeness, with reasoning and high comprehension capabilities not do what they ought to?
It is because we limit ourselves to our environment, to only what we see. We magnify what we shouldn’t be magnifying. We don’t focus on things above us. How have people, who had all the odds against risen and overcome those odds? Because they chose to see, to visualize things. Things that they were able to get in life. And so can you! Allow yourself to see, what is beyond you, what is beyond your current circumstances. And work towards what you see, then one day you will look back find that you have achieved what you intended, or what you saw. And even at that, you don’t stop, you keep evolving.
So long as there is breath in your lungs, there is a heartbeat in your chest, you focus on what is above. And not on all the negative that you see or experience. Ask yourself, what do I need to learn from this, or what am I not seeing? Do I need to change my perspective on something?
Stagnating is a bad thing
The call to focus on things above and to continually evolve through learning and shifting perspectives resonates as a powerful encouragement to embrace a mindset of growth and possibility. Overall, this piece inspires readers to elevate their vision beyond present challenges and to embrace a life of purposeful pursuit and continual growth.