September 10 - Colossians 3: Real Life

So if you’re serious about living this new resurrection life with Christ, act like it. Pursue the things over which Christ presides. Don’t shuffle along, eyes to the ground, absorbed with the things right in front of you. Look up, and be alert to what is going on around Christ—that’s where the action is. See things from his perspective.  (Colossians 3:1-2)

What does that mean - to see things from Christ's perspective?  I know what it's not.  It's not rose-colored glasses, positive thinking, or walking on the "sunny side of the street."  It's also not living as if the difficulties of today and the frailties of my humanness are all there is.

Paul gives us clues:  "Pursue the things over which Christ presides.... Look up, and be alert to what is going on around Christ."   Again, I'm not sure exactly what that means, but I know that it's not being self-absorbed or consumed with the stuff of this life.  Paul continues,

Your old life is dead. Your new life, which is your real life—even though invisible to spectators—is with Christ in God. He is your life. When Christ (your real life, remember) shows up again on this earth, you’ll show up, too—the real you, the glorious you. Meanwhile, be content with obscurity, like Christ.  (Colossians 3:1-4)

Seeing things from Christ's perspective requires that my life be in Him.  He is my real life and that life is invisible, hidden, and obscure.   That kind of "real life" doesn't feel very real - it's often unsatisfactory, lonely, sometimes demeaning.  A far cry from what is touted as real life - fulfilling my dreams, being happy, putting myself on the list - that is the shuffling, "eyes to the ground" sort of life that Paul warns against.

Real life is not becoming great or having great experiences.  Real life is Christ.

"The great thing, if one can, is to stop regarding all the unpleasant things as interruptions of one's 'own', or 'real' life.  The truth is of course what one calls the interruptions are precisely one's real life - the life God is sending one day by day:  what one calls one's 'real life' is a phantom of one's own imagination."  C.S. Lewis, The Quotable Lewis