Perspective

A TV advertisement for a national newspaper in Britain shows a close-up shot of a powerful-looking young man with a shaven head running at high speed toward an elderly woman, giving the strong impression that he was going to attack her. At the last moment the camera angle changed and we saw the full picture: he was running in order to get her out of the way of a fast-moving car which was going to hit her as she crossed the street. We saw him pick her up and take her to safety. The advertisement went on to claim, of course, that the newspaper gave its readers the fuller picture of what was really going on.

Can you picture this ad? It makes me think about how we all view life from our own unique points of view. We all see things from our own lens. There is no way that I read the Gospels in the same exact way that you read them. There’s no way that you watch a movie with the same perspective that I do. There are things that you can justify doing that I cannot. Our assumptions (conscious and unconscious), backrounds, world views, culture, faith, family, traditions, etc…they all play a role in how we see ourselves, others, God, and everything in life. But what about God's perspective on my relationships, motives, circumstances, etc.? How do I see God's perspective on things? I want to make sure I am observing, appreciating, and reflecting on the world around me through the eyes of the one who created it all, not through a lens that is distorted by selfishness, pride, and vanity.

My motives control my perspective on a situation. My perspective generates the choices I make. The consequences of my choices determine the reality of my life. It’s only in knowing God, in knowing how much he loves us and how valuable we are that gives us the ability to see through our circumstances to what is really going on. His love is full of insight and knowledge. And I want it.

Know the Lord. Know his love. Seek hard for his beauty, drink in his glory, cry out for his wisdom. Receive his rescuing love and his amazing grace. Look for him; you'll find him. And then abandon your life to him.

So let us know, let us press on to know the Lord. As surely as the sun rises He will appear, and He will come to us like the rain, like the spring rain watering the earth. --Hosea 6:8

Lord, make me see thy glory in every place. --Michelangelo