Perspective

As I was flying home from Wisconsin where I had the privilege of celebrating the marriage of two friends from missions training (Summer 2008 with NMSI), I was struck by the difference in perspective I had from the sky. I was thinking about how when God sees the world, he sees tiny houses the size of erasers on pencils and squares of green vegetation dotting the Earth. Yet, He also sees a couch in a living room where two friends sit together, clinging to each other as they cry over recent happenings in their lives. Or is present in the church when the eyes of the bride and groom first meet one their wedding day. He sees the far away, zoomed out picture as well as the intimate, up close picture.

Another realization of perspective came during Thanksgiving when I started making a list of all the hard things and good things that happened this year. Though I would characterize the year as “hard,” I was struck that there were at least twice as many profoundly good, meaningful experiences on my list. I couldn’t think of any other hard things. Partly, it hard to categorize some things as “hard” and not “good.” Also, there are several really hard things that were hard to remember or, I’m sure, some hard things that I actually did forget. It made me think about how big and intense those things seemed in the moment, yet even within the same year I can no longer remember them. God has this uncanny ability to see things in the long term like that, not denying that an event is powerful and transforming in the moment but also knowing that there is an element of “temporary” to it that I often don’t see as clearly as He does.

Will you pray that I learn to see from His perspective?