As I look back through May 2020 in my e-journal, the first thing I notice is that there are entries in it for every day of the month. Never missed. Never too busy. Never needed to ignore the morning wakeup alarm in order to catch up on some sleep. These days, if two or three mornings a week I have the time for noodling and typing after my reading I’m feeling like it’s been a good week. Seems that back then, all I had was time. 24/7 lockdown time. Seems like forever ago. Seems like yesterday.

Another thing different in 2020 was there wasn’t a lot of variety in the news cycle. Though many facets, there was basically just one story . . . day after day . . . after day. These days, I can’t keep up with the headlines. Too much going on to even try to be conversant in most of it.

But what I realize as I read through this post from 6 years ago, is that whether it’s too much time or too little, too much happening around me or not enough, the temptation is still the same — the temptation to allow my mind to be set on things below and not meditate enough on things above.

Here are my thoughts from this day in my reading plan from 2020.

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Talking to my daughter last night, and I had to laugh when I asked her how her day was and she said she’d put another check mark on her wall to help her keep track that another day had passed. I could relate. When every day kind of feels like yesterday with no real expectation that tomorrow’s gonna be much different, the days just kind of all flow together.

For most of us, I’m guessing, our world’s have become pretty small and predictable. I find myself talking increasingly about managing “my bubble” — as in, who’s in my face-to-face (that’s not a good social distancing term) circle of contacts. And I think it might be easy, when you’re housebound, to become somewhat earthbound, as well. So used to looking at the walls in my house that I forget to look up . . . to look waaaaay up! But something I read this morning is helping with that.

But the Jerusalem above is free, and she is our mother.

(Galatians 4:26 ESV)

Context? Paul’s telling a group of Galatians who “desire to be under the law” (4:21) a story. Actually, he’s blowing up a story that law-abiding Jews had known for centuries. The story of Hagar and Sarah — two woman who bore sons to Abraham. The first, a slave in the house who conceived by the will of man, and an act of the flesh, in an attempt to do the work of God. The second, a betrothed bride with a barren womb, who bore a son when she shouldn’t have only because God had intervened in order to fulfill His promise. And what blows the story up is that while every law-abiding Jew thought they were children of Sarah, Paul says that to depend on the law is actually exhibiting they were children of Hagar. Ouch!

Furthermore, he links Hagar, the slave woman, with Mount Sinai, the place where the law was given. Ouch, again! And then, he goes over the top . . .

. . . she corresponds to the present Jerusalem, for she is in slavery with her children.

(Galatians 4:25b ESV)

To hope in keeping the law as one’s means of being declared righteous before God is bondage. To rely on the flesh to participate in the divine, is onerous drudgery that gets you nowhere. To be under “the present Jerusalem”, thinking it can lead to a glorious future, is to be a child of a slave woman.

Instead, for those of us “who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God” (Jn. 1:13), Paul says our mother is Jerusalem above. So, look up, dear saint. Look waaaaay up!

Our nationality isn’t really found on this orb, “but our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ” (Php. 3:20).

Our pilgrimage isn’t focused on any place or holy hill on this earth, instead, we “come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem” (Heb. 12:22).

The heavenly Jerusalem. She’s our mother. The holy city that will one day descend from heaven “prepared as a bride adorned for her husband” (Rev. 21:2, 10). Having the glory of God as its light, and the presence of the Almighty and the Lamb as its temple (21:22-23).

What a reminder that, though our days may be somewhat predictable and, though looking at our four walls has gotten way beyond monotonous, we are not earthbound at all. We are, in fact, heaven bound!

Children of promise. Children born again into freedom. Children birthed by our mother, the Jerusalem above.

So look up. Look waaaaay up!

Because of grace. For His glory.