Perspective

Have you ever noticed that whether the glass is half full or half empty often simply depends on your perspective?

Here’s an example: I have had a headache for 5 solid days, 24 hours a day. It isn’t terrible enough to keep me down, but it is annoying, there all the time, and I can’t always stay focused on what I am doing. This would typically be something that would drive me crazy and eventually get me to the point that I would just quit. But I have a friend who has been battling a severe headache, as in curled up in a fetal position either in her bed or a hospital bed, for six weeks now, with no light at the end of the tunnel. Makes my little headache not an issue at all. Instead, every time I am distracted by the pain in my head, I use it as an opportunity to pray for her.

Or what about this: as I drive to work (or home) it is so hot that the A/C in my van never gets cool. I could be annoyed, but when I think about all the people who have to work outside in this heat, or who do not have a cool place to stay, I have to instead be thankful that I have a cool home and a cool job.

We all have a way of looking at things in our lives. We all have a tendency to see through self-centered eyes at times. But we also all have the potential to look at our circumstances from a different perspective, if we so choose.

What expectations do we place on others, purposely or not, because we are only seeing things from our perspective? How are we affecting our relationships when we constantly want everyone else to see things from our perspective? Where could we grow if only we were willing to see things differently?

This is also true when we experience things in our lives that we don’t understand and begin to question God about it. He says in Isaiah 55:8-9

“For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
neither are your ways my ways,”
declares the Lord.
“As the heavens are higher than the earth,
so are my ways higher than your ways
and my thoughts than your thoughts.

God’s perspective is an eternal perspective, where our perspective is based on the here and now. He is looking at us as part of His creation and how He can use what happens to us, good and bad, (the bad not caused by God, but brought about by the fact that we live in a fallen world where the evil one is at work), for His glory.

Now, I’ll be the first to admit that I sometimes often get caught up in what’s going on in my life and frustrated by what I see. But that is only because I can’t see what God sees. The moment I begin to acknowledge that fact, my whole perspective (and subsequently, attitude) changes.

So, my challenge for you (and me) today is to begin viewing my life through God’s eyes, and realizing that His perspective much better than mine, even if I can’t see the whole picture.

What’s an area in which you need to change your perspective today?