Perspective

His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence, by which he has granted to us his precious and very great promises, so that through them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire. For this very reason, make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue, and virtue with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with steadfastness, and steadfastness with godliness, and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love. For if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they keep you from being ineffective or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. (2 Peter 1:3-8 ESV). Tomorrow begins spring break for the schools in our area. My older grandchildren are looking forward to a week without homework, schedules, and tests. They asked me if I was looking forward to “some time off.” I said, “I’m on spring break all the time.” I really don’t have much of a schedule since retirement. I make my schedule when I get up in the morning and adjust according to how Mary and I feel during the rest of the day.

When thinking about that, it reminded me of how important perspective is in our lives. We all have a different way of viewing things. You may have seen some of the drawings that ask the question of what we see first in them. The picture attached here is one of those. Which way did you think the man was facing when you first looked at the picture? Was he looking directly at you; or, was he facing to the right? It’s one of those things that can make us ponder a bit. Life is like that. Whether we are looking at things “in the long run” or we are making “mountains out of mole hills,” as Christians our desire should be that our perspective be conformed to that of Jesus. The more time we spend with God the more clearly we will see. The more we gain God’s perspective. Elijah was derailed with God’s perspective by discouragement. Paul lost a dear friend, Demas, because Demas lost his vision to worldliness. Naomi allowed bitterness to affect her perspective due to the losses in life. Moses vision was blurred by anger because of Israel’s murmuring. Stress greatly affects our perspective and we lose sight of what God has planned for us. Jonah’s vision was clearly blurred by prejudice against the people of Nineveh. If we do not pursue growing and developing in God’s perspective our perspective will become blurred by stagnation and we will become “blind, and cannot see far off” (v. 9). The more time we spend with Christ the more our perspective will be changed. We must learn to run to seek God’s face when dealing with a situation and ask for forgiveness when we have gone off path. Doing so will remove the blinding effects and give us a fresh Godly perspective.