It’s so easy to get discouraged. Spend too much time looking around at the world or at yourself and eventually…well, it’s a pretty bleak picture! This morning I found myself discouraged at the world and my place in it: how can all this evil that I see around me and inside me be dealt with? Where do we even start? Our culture is bitterly divided, both inside and outside the church. And even the most devout of believers still experience a division within themselves between the old and the new man, as Paul puts it. We’re in a life and death struggle!

How do we cope? How do we deal with the realities of this world?

It’s precisely when we are most discouraged or down or confused that, instead of looking anywhere else, we need to look up.

If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth.
-Colossians 3:1-2 (ESV)

Look not to the world or yourself but to Christ, seated at God’s right hand! He is our only hope, our only power, our only righteousness. There is none like him and none beside him!

Look up. Set your mind on things above. Look to Christ. I don’t know if anyone else needs this reminder, but I sure did today.