"Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth.
For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God."
Colossians 3:2-3
This really struck me today. Sometimes I think that I am almost resentful of scriptures like "Trust not in the arm of flesh" ... seems like the X-Files line, "Trust NO ONE." It seems difficult to me to get through life trusting God only. ... But perhaps that is the point. :) God keeps his promises... we almost never do; not always because we plan it that way, but just because we're fallible. We tell someone that we will always be there, or that we will always care... then we wake up one day, and we don't care, or even know where they are. We're just not reliable. :)
Anyway, what really struck me about this is the part about being dead... that we are dead and our lives are hidden with Christ in God. I'm not sure that I am right, being fallible and all, but what came into my mind as I was reading that was the veil... the fact that we can't remember anything about our lives before this earth. I think that the death symbology there works really well... we are dead to ourselves. We don't know who we are, and our real lives are hidden, waiting to be revealed at some future moment. ... Thinking about that, the whole thing seemed to make more sense to me. Of course we shouldn't trust each other or even ourselves completely, since we've lost our memories and have no idea what is going on. :) God knows us better than we know ourselves; he has access to the other side. We need to trust him, and remember that we're symbolically dead. This is just a test; we need to hang in and get through it. Face challenges, overcome obstacles, and when we need hints, we should go to God, who knows all the answers. In the end, our lives will be opened to us again, and when we are restored to ourselves, then maybe it will be okay trusting other people more. :)
The affection part too... sure, we can care about one of the walking dead; We're all just Zombies in a way. But, as Zombies, we're just a shadow of our former "real" selves... all the affection we pour into the zombie version is shadowy too, not only because we love a partial truth, but because we ARE a partial truth. We definitely do need to learn to love imperfection, even in Zombie form... but I think the point here is still where our trust and loyalty needs to be centered. God is who can teach us to love truly and without bias... and how will we want heaven if everything we care about is here? We have to want something better... for ourselves, and for others.
