Think about the things of heaven, not the things of earth. - Colossians 3:2
The scene is a dimly lit, poorly ventilated prison cell. The year is 60 AD. The air is stifling and stale. There is no bed, no blanket—only a pallet to lie down on with the clothes on your back. In the corner of the cell sits a man named Paul. He is unkempt and likely dehydrated. His swollen ankles are shackled in chains. His skin is worn and chaffed. He is bent over, determined and scratching a letter onto parchment to the people of Colosse.
What kind of letter would you write under those conditions? Help me? Get me out of here? Pray for me? Paul does ask for prayer, but his request isn’t that God would deliver him from prison or even make him more comfortable while there! Instead, he asks God to give him more opportunities to share Christ.
The discomforts and inconveniences we all deal with daily can quickly become our focus, as we try to make things a bit easier in our lives. After all, it’s human nature to want to be comfortable. But, too often, our personal comfort and well-being can become an unhealthy priority. Like Paul, it’s good to keep perspective on the things that matter most and fix our attention on what God is calling us to do. If we don’t, we may find ourselves held captive by our own need for comfort and invisibly imprisoned by it.
ADDITIONAL THOUGHTS
Let’s take a few moments to think about where we’re focussing our time, attention and even our prayers these days, making sure that our own comfort doesn’t come before those things that should take precedence in our lives.