Tag Archives: perspective

MOLLY AND ME – PERSPECTIVE

Christian Life, ,

MOLLY AND ME – PERSPECTIVE

Molly is approximately 28cm tall at the shoulder while I am 1.52m tall. It stands to reason, therefore, that her perspective on her world is very different from mine. She sees everything around her at almost ground level. That means that she see perceives her world and everything in it as much bigger than her! It’s no wonder she has a very loud and persistent bark! Everything and everyone unfamiliar to her is a threat to her safety.

Just recently, shortly after we went to bed, our world was rocked by a series of vicious thunder storms – five in a row. Poor Molly couldn’t contain her bark. She was thoroughly unsettled by hideous noises from above that she could not identify. She finally settled down after the noise abated and the rain fell in torrents.

Molly lives in a world of interesting and curious smells and sights at ground level. She explores her world mainly with her nose and eyes. Her hearing is acute and anything unfamiliar out of sight or smell is to be treated as an enemy and barked at until it is identified as friend or foe.

I am her security. Much of her barking also has to do with being my protector. When I am out and she is home alone, she considers herself to be off duty. She doesn’t move out of her bed, or from my chair or make a sound until I return. The moment she sees me at the gate, she comes alive. It’s as though she has an on/off switch which comes into action when my car leaves the property.

Actually, the roles are reversed. I am her protector. I have to monitor her on our walks because she doesn’t recognise potential danger. I have to watch that she doesn’t try to take on anything too big for her to handle, or eat anything not good for her. My perspective concerning her is far more accurate than hers!

This reminds me that my perspective on my own life is just as limited as Molly’s is on hers. My world view is full of dangers and insecurities as long as I look at life through my own eyes. Circumstances are either comfortable or threatening as I interpret them. This makes life very uncertain and the future unknown.

However, in Christ, my worldview is very different. I view everyday life, not from the ground up but from above. When I believed in Jesus and received Him as my Lord – my supreme authority – I died with Him and, through the power of the Holy Spirit, I was raised to a new life and seated with Him in the heavenly realms (Eph. 2:6).

Now I have a choice. I can continue to look at life through the lens of uncertainty and insecurity as the world does, or I can believe God’s word and live in the certainty that Jesus Christ is Lord regardless of what happens on the ground.

As for me, I have chosen to make God’s word the lens through which I view life and everything, good or bad it dishes up to me.

And we know that in all things, God works for the good of those who love                                       Him, who have been called according to His purpose. (Rom. 8:28)

Since you, then, have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. For you died and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. (Col. 3:1-3).                                                                                 

Only through the worldview of Jesus’ sovereignty can I experience the peace of God that transcends understanding as I follow and trust Him every moment of every day.

A Job Well Done

Christian Life, , ,

A JOB WELL DONE

“Paul and Barnabas handpicked leaders in each church. After praying — their prayers intensified by fasting — they presented these new leaders to the Master to whom they had entrusted their lives. Working their way back through Pisidia, they came to Pamphylia and preached in Perga. Finally, they made it to Attalia and caught a ship back to Antioch, where it had all started — launched by God’s grace and now safely home by God’s grace. A good piece of work.

“On arrival they got the church together and reported on their trip, telling in detail how God had used them to throw the door of faith wide open so people of all nations could come streaming in. Then they settled down for a long, leisurely visit with the disciples.” Acts 14:23-28 (The Message).

“Life is lived forward and understood backwards,” Many months before, two rookie missionaries set out from Antioch. They had no mission board behind them, no regularly monthly stipend paid into their bank accounts, no cell phones or email to keep them in contact with home base, just them and the Holy Spirit in them.

Now they were back home, back in the safety and comfort of their circle of brothers and sisters, reporting on both harrowing and joyful experiences which were all in a day’s work for two courageous pioneers. What did they tell them back home? What were their greatest moments on their journey through unknown territory, both geographically and spiritually?

It seems. not a word about their suffering! Did they have enough to eat? How did they get from town to town? Where did they sleep? Who did their laundry? Who cared for them when they got sick? No. They returned to their home church to report on the work God had accomplished through them. They joyfully shared their story of a wide open door for Gentiles to enter God’s kingdom through faith in Jesus.

King George VI once quoted these words in his New Year message: “I said to the man who stood at the gate of the year, ‘Give me a lamp that I may tread safely into the unknown.’ He said to me, ‘Put your hand in the hand of God. That will be to you better than a light and safer than a known way.'”

Paul and Barnabas surely found those words to be profoundly true. A long look backwards revealed the hand of a faithful God on them in spite of suffering and hardship. Fogotten were the weary days, the cold nights, the steep and stony roads, the growling stomachs and the taunts and cruel words of unbelievers. It was the memory of the God who sustained them and carried them through, the God who openend hearts and gathered peopleinto His kingdom, that filled them with joy.

We may not be facing the trials and troubles that Paul and Barnabas had to embrace to do their Master’s will. By comparison, our lives may seem cushy but, nevertheless, each one of us has his or her testing to endure. The same God who sustained them is with us on our journey, but our experience of him depends on our perspective as it did their. They did not dwell on the hardships. Those were part of the package to toughen them up to reach their goal.

After all he want through, this was Paul’s perspective: “Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen it temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.” 2 Corinthians 4:16-18 (NIV).