Living On the Top Shelf

“As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.” Isaiah 55:9.

Up in the top of my closet resides something precious to me – my 25 year old son’s torn and battered turquoise blankie from when he was a toddler. Rarely do I retrieve a step ladder to climb up there to hold it…I simply know it’s there.

When considering my thought closet, it is easy to reach for the same old thoughts that have been hanging around for the biggest part of my life. I have in the top of my thought closet a shelf full of the precious truths of God. They reside on a higher shelf than my own thinking and reaching them is no small feat. If I stand flatfooted, that is in my own thinking, I will never be able to reach the things of God in my mind and heart. There is a ladder that each of us is afforded in an effort to reach the top shelf of God. A ladder is a vertical or inclined set of rungs affording elevation to a greater level. Our ladder has 64 rungs that all lead to God once our lives are inclined towards His truths – the Holy Bible. Each chapter of the Bible builds on the other and all form a beautiful incline towards the greatest elevation of all … God.

Through climbing our spiritual ladders we ascend into the higher thoughts of God, and recognize His ways which are always better than ours. We begin living life on a higher level than our previously chosen thoughts and agendas. We no longer reach for the same old thoughts which have gone from our eye level to residing beneath us. Rung by rung, chapter by chapter we ascend and live life above the challenges and self-defeating thoughts. Step by step, we move intentionally and faithfully upward and outward. We reside with God on the top shelf and live our lives from His perspective with the focus on His Kingdom and our responsibilities in inviting others.