On Perspective

One thing that we wanted when this blog was started was to share what God's been teaching us. We welcome stories of personal encounters with the Almighty. Its such an encouragement to hear how God meets us where we are and brings us where He wants us.

One thing I've learned recently is about perspective. A coworker of mine always says "the urgency changes depending on which side of the gallows you're on". My what a statement on perspective! The view changes doesn't it. And so often our view is downward, stuck on the circumstances and unable to look beyond what has a grip on us.

I find myself in that hole far more often than I'd like to be. Many times I recognize it, jump out and move on. But every once in a while I lose my view of God, I lose my heavenly perspective on a situation - maybe because it hits too close to home, maybe because it sends ripples of chaos through my neat and orderly world.

I was wrestling with this recently - feeling an imminent downward spiral. The interesting thing is that earlier in the week I had my review at work and my boss noted that when I don't have a good grip on things I tend to oversimplify or over "complexify" things. I boiled that down to if things are in chaos (no neat orderly world for me) then I will do whatever it takes to get things back in order, and quickly. Whatever it takes, that is, but trust God that its not chaos to Him.

That was my big "ah-ha" moment. I felt like God asked me "Do you trust Me to have a handle on it, even if you don't know where its going?". I have to say in that moment my immediate answer was "no" and I was convicted on that. So God's been showing that I need to trust Him because I am not always (maybe even often) going to know how things fit in the big picture.

That's hard for me. I'm a "rules of engagement" kind of gal. That gets me into trouble with legalistic thinking quite often, and I am beginning to understand better now why that is. My perspective is wrong. I'm looking at the pieces of circumstances or situations and trying to make them all fit and formulate an action plan and then execute it, without really knowing God's perspective. Lets be honest, sometimes without even seeking Gods perspective.

But God's been showing me I need to trust Him in more than I have before, because He is taking me into uncharted territory and He is the light that will show the way. And when traversing the unknown, you can't formulate an action plan more than a step or two ahead. So I'll trust Him to supply the next step and not worry about the one after that. It may be a long and harrowing journey, but if I'm going to trust God, I need to trust Him for everything, not just the little bits I let go of.

So that's what God has been teaching me in the last week or so. What's He been teaching you?

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