“Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things.” (Colossians 3:2 CSB)
Devotional
You probably already know what your mind defaults to when things go quiet. For me, it tends to be the thing I cannot fix. The conversation that went sideways. The number in the bank account that is not where I need it to be. The health of loved ones. The mind finds its favourite worry and it just camps there.
Paul is not telling us to be so heavenly-minded that we float through life oblivious to real problems. He is not saying pretend nothing hurts. He is saying: you have a choice about where your attention lives. And that choice matters more than we think, because what we fix our minds on shapes how we see everything else, including God, including ourselves.
The phrase “set your minds” is active and intentional. It is not “hope your mind wanders toward good things.” It is a deliberate reorientation. We are talking about the daily, sometimes hourly, practice of turning our thoughts back toward what is actually true. God is on the throne. Christ is seated in victory. We are loved, held, and known. That is what is above. That is what Paul is pointing us toward.
The honest truth is that earthly things shout, and heavenly things tend to whisper. The anxiety about money is loud. The deadline pressure is loud. The comparison with someone else’s life is very loud. The peace of God that passes understanding? Sometimes we have to get quiet to hear it at all. That does not make it less real. It just means we have to be more intentional about where we point our attention.
This is not about willpower. It is about anchoring. When our minds drift back down to the spiral, we gently, without shame, bring them back up. We remind ourselves of what is true. We pray. We come back. Over and over, if we need to. That is not failure. That is the practice.
Reflection
I notice the things that pull my mind away most are the ones I feel least in control of. I want to start paying attention to where my thoughts go when I am not being intentional. Today, I want to practise bringing my mind back to what is true rather than just letting it run. Not because the hard things are not real, but because God is more real.
Prayer
Father, our minds are so easily pulled toward worry, comparison, and fear. Teach us what it means to set our minds on things above, not as an escape from life, but as a return to what is actually true. Give us the grace to come back to You whenever we drift. We want to think from a place of trust, not just reach for trust when things fall apart.