When We See With Perspective
I’m a planner. We could all agree that it’s a great feeling when a plan comes together. When the hard work, the money spent or the effort expended pays off. It just makes the long journey to get there feel worth it.
When the pregnancy is over and you finally get to hold that beautiful new life in your arms; the difficulties, the weight gain and hard labor fade. The feeling of walking down the aisle toward your college diploma becomes worth the price tag and four years of your life.
Then there are those times when we are sure we heard the voice of God clearly to go in a certain direction, take a specific job or do a certain thing; only for things to completely fall apart leaving you wondering if you heard from God at all. Not fun.
Things don’t always turn out like we expect, leaving us feeling we made a wrong turn in Albuquerque; like we made a mistake along the way and what we had hoped would happen didn’t happen like we thought it would, or at all. This often leaves us feeling discouraged; questioning ourselves and the process.
There could be so many different reasons for our plan to have been highjacked. One we should understand is, if there are other people involved in whatever is happening, their will comes into play. God will not override another’s will.
I don’t really like it when these things happen. I like order and sequential instructions to follow; oh and of course the expected ending. We don’t always get things the way we like them. But sometimes what we do get that we didn’t expect is perspective.
Perspective is “the ability to perceive things in their actual interrelations or comparative importance. A way of regarding situations, facts, etc. judging their relative importance.
Perspective is a beautiful gift. It allows us to see past the disappointment, to understand the detour. Mostly it gives God an opportunity to change our hearts in ways we didn’t know needed changing. Often the detour can cause us to react in negative ways that show us an area that needs some attention in us. That alone can be so valuable. We all have blind spots to issues we have that when poked become blaringly obvious. #ouch
God directed us very clearly fifteen years ago to leave everything and go where he would show us. So, we did just that. But let me tell you, it turned out NOTHING like we expected and cost us in every way more than we wanted to pay.
After all of these years I can look back and see with perspective the many things God did IN us, THROUGH us, and FOR our ultimate good. It can take years to gain the perspective we need. God is playing the long game. He’s after more of our hearts and wills than we may want to give.
No step of faith is wasted just because it didn’t turn out the way we thought it would. God never wastes anything. He takes all of the ingredients and mixes them just right for the best outcome. Like baking a cake, if we only taste the individual ingredients separately, we wouldn’t think the flour was a good component. But without it we wouldn’t get a cake. All the ingredients need to come together to form the perfect dessert. #perspective
Like me you may have situations you are being forced to deal with, plans that didn’t go as planned.
Today:
take a deep breath
quiet your soul
and let it go.
Let the efforts of the flesh subside and let God do his thing in your life.