One of the things I’ve learned from doing discipleship is that God cares more about the line of your eternity than the dot of your present. That principle has never been more real to me in my life today than ever before.
Looking back on my life thus far, there have been many times where the “dot of my present” did not look promising, in fact if I were to judge my future based on the dark seasons of my life I would have predicted that I would be in a completely different place than where I am today.
I believe that God wants us to shift our focus from the dot of our present circumstances to the line of our eternity. One of the traps of the enemy is to keep us focused on our flaws, failures and shortcomings. He wants to steal our hope, kill our joy, and destroy any possibility of moving forward. He tries to do these things by isolating our thoughts and shrinking our focus so that we can’t see the bigger picture of what God is really doing.
I believe God wants you to know that your journey is not over yet. Your story is not yet finished and He, the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end, has the last words when it comes to your life. If you have breath in your lungs, God is not done with you!
One of the areas in my life that the enemy was trying to trap me was my academic journey. If I were to judge my academic potential in High School, I would say that I was projected to not go to College. If I were to judge my academic potential in College, I would say that I don’t have what it takes to make it to University. If I were to judge my academic potential in University, I would say you barely made it, what makes you think you can do a masters?
You see, rather than basing my future on my current circumstances and situation, I chose to take my eyes off of the dot of my present and move them towards the line of my eternity. I chose to not allow what I see to dictate my faith but to use my faith to dictate what I see. I chose to listen to what God was saying rather than what my mind was telling me. I chose to be obedient even when I felt unqualified for the task. I chose to put my trust in God because that’s where my hope comes from.
13 I pray that God, the source of hope, will fill you completely with joy and peace because you trust in him. Then you will overflow with confident hope through the power of the Holy Spirit.
Romans 15:13 (NLT)
I’d like to encourage you with these two scriptures:
2 Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things.
Colossians 3:2 (NIV)
8 “For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
neither are your ways my ways,”
declares the Lord.
9 “As the heavens are higher than the earth,
so are my ways higher than your ways
and my thoughts than your thoughts.
Isaiah 55:8-9 (NIV)
Wherever you are in life right now, the dot of your present, I want to challenge you to set your minds on things above and not on earthly things. To step back and ask God to show you the line of your eternity. To ask Him how He sees your present situation and what He has to say to you. Remember His thoughts are not our thoughts, His ways are not our ways, they are higher than ours. Let us exercise our faith by choosing to focus on the line of our eternity and being obedient to His instructions because we know that faith without works is dead.
17 So you see, faith by itself isn’t enough. Unless it produces good deeds, it is dead and useless.
James 2:17 (NLT)