It’s All About Perspective

“Just one thing: forgetting what lies behind but straining forward to what lies ahead, I continue my pursuit toward the goal, the prize of God’s upward calling, in Christ Jesus. Let us, then, who are ‘perfectly mature’ adopt this attitude…only, with regard to what we have attained, continue on the same course.” Philippians 3: 13b, 15a, 16

Have you ever noticed how different people can look at the same thing and see different things? Or listen to the same speaker, but hear something different? It’s all about perspective

Last week my oldest child graduated from high school and on the way to her ceremony, we passed through a little town near us. On the one side of the Main Street there are several little houses high up a steep embankment. I noticed them and mentioned that I would not want to live there because the grass looks difficult to cut. My mother-in-law said that all she noticed were all the steep stairs. My oldest son said the houses were small and my oldest daughter said all she thought about was how hard it would be to drive a car up there.

We all looked at the exact same houses, but all saw something different. I cut the grass each week, so that’s what I noticed. My mother-in-law is 81 and uses a walker, so she noticed the steps. John Paul likes “stuff” and so he saw how small the houses were and Mary Kate has been driving for a little less than a year so she saw the challenge of driving a car up to the houses.

So what do you “see” or “hear” when God moves or speaks? When you see a sunset do you revel in the beauty and goodness of God? When you learn physics or chemistry, do you see the workings of His hands? When tragedies strike do you see the loving arms of God holding you? When you sin and fall flat on your face in shame do you see the mercy of God pouring over you like rain? When the Church teaches us right from wrong do we hear the tender, compassionate voice of God?

As we wander this earth and notice the joys, sufferings and indifferences, do we see and hear God or not? He is there. Everywhere. There is no pace that He is not present and there is no situation where He is not working. Are we living with the perspective of the “upward calling”, or are we bogged down in the deafness and blindness of the culture surrounding us? When our eyes are fixed on Christ, we see Him in every situation of life. When are ears are open to His Word, we hear Him speak to us in a million different ways each day. And this “sight” and this “hearing” sets us free to reach into the quagmire of daily life amidst the grime, noise, hatred and indifference and set others free.

Dear Jesus, I want to see You in everyone and everything. I want to hear Your voice in every situation. Open my eyes and ears to Your presence in my heart and in my world. Amen.