Perspective

 

Each season seems to have a “something” that wants to get in the way. An obstacle or event that upsets our path. Looking back, things look clear, but inside that time, things can seem unclear, the problem bigger or higher to overcome than it really is.

Ephesians 3:18 says,

And may you have the power to understand, as all God’s people should, how wide, how long, how high and how deep His love is.

God’s Love is with us, covers us in all our seasons. It is higher and bigger than anything the evil one may throw in our way. Within a season, our Perspective Changer comes when we expand our view, beyond the obstacle and to the One who moves it. Our Father is the Season Changer, the One Who knows our every step and has set our path each day. We just need to expand our view till understanding comes into focus.  

Perspective, what a word! I’ve heard several people use this word lately, in a context I really didn’t understand. Soooo, to think it thru, here’s my peek at the word….

Perspective requires many openings, it is not walled off, or singular in origin. Perspective requires input opportunities, or else it is just opinion. Perspective implies a widened view of things, an understanding of the panorama life gives us.

So, for me….I see and live life from my point on the panorama, that is, my vantage point, my “perspective” of life…but perspective sees and allows for the existence of others.

Opinion, often times, has seen others, but deems them invalid and so dismisses them. When we seek God’s perspective, we are free to live from our vantage point ← that place He has placed us → and look for Him in the vantage points of others.

When Jesus asked, “Do you have eyes but fail to see, and ears but fail to hear?” Mark 8:18, it wasn’t a physical question, but a faith question. When we live our lives “seeing” thru our own filters of experience, our vision is limited. We can be ruled and directed by pride and fears we are totally unaware of, because we choose not to look there.

Jesus was asking His disciples, and now us, to view life from a place of faith…to trust Him and His perspective.

And so, our perspectives are not right or wrong, they just “are” our points on the panorama of life intended to join together in one story.

Since we are living by the Spirit, let us follow the Spirit’s leading in every part of our lives.

Galatians 5:25

Just As He Had Always Done...

So, I can’t get this verse out of my head…Sharing!

I think the story of Daniel and the lion’s den is a familiar one to many people, it’s in chapter 6 of Daniel, if ya want to refresh the details. In verse 10, tho’, just before Daniel is thrown in with the lions, this verse describes his response to the decree that was made…    

When Daniel learned that the order had been signed, he went home. In an upstairs room of his house there were windows that faced toward Jerusalem. There, just as he had always done, he knelt down at the open windows and prayed to God three times a day.

Daniel 6:10

Did you catch that? …He went home and prayed, “just as he had always done.” Daniel’s regular day consisted of prayer and he did not change that because a circumstance had changed or become difficult.

What a lesson this “space” thing is! (see previous post) How often does life throw us a curve and we dash off to “fix it”? Consistency in prayer, conversation with God is our only “fix”. A phrase comes to mind that we often use, or hear ~ “If God has allowed”  ~ this verse from Daniel gives me another perspective on that. How about, “if God planned” this or that to happen?

We seem to think our determining of good or bad situations is correct, but God has already determined

and said…

And we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to His purpose for them.

Romans 8:28 ← Something Daniel already obviously knew. His habit, his regular routine was to pray, to talk to God three times a day. Set times, a set place “just as he had always done.”

I think Daniel’s example teaches us so many things….a few?

~ Life will happen and God has it all planned out. Our best pattern in life is to talk to God regularly, everyday!

~ And then, to trust God with every moment ←That’s not just a phrase, it is the practical application/response to communion with God.

~ Because, unless we are trusting, what is the point of prayer?

What I see in Daniel is a peace, an unwavering confidence in God to take care of every situation. In our days, American perspective, we tend to define good outcomes with financial success or our creature comforts, if those are satisfied, all is good…

But what about the lions?

Because they are there.

We stand among them everyday.

Circumstances, people, choices, so many things that could eat us alive and take us off the path God intends for our lives.

 
 Others are watching, just as King Darius was watching Daniel…Do they see us praising and pointing to God in all things, so they too, like the king, may come to know who God is?

That tis why we are here after all! To live as Christ did, to walk with our Lord and live in a way that others see the difference HE is in our days. Just as the king looking in the lion’s den, others should look at us and see our salvation story.

It is what prayer does, when we lean in and listen, trusting our Saviour’s promises, His Peace stands us among the lions in life, in order to point others to Christ…because life is not about the lions. They are just a muzzled prop to bring even kings to Christ. Our strength, our passions are found in prayer like Daniel’s

…just as he had always done, he knelt down at the open windows and prayed to God three times a day.

Daniel 6:10

Remembering Space

Sitting here looking at the labyrinth today and enjoying the breeze thru the bamboo and the shade it provides. I have such wonderful memories here, here on a patch of dirt on the side of the house of all places! I just loved my days working in the labyrinth. Not just the physical rock moving and watching it all come together, but how God brought it together and worked on me.

Now, when I pray, I often visualize this space and “walk” it ♥, as a way to focus my heart in conversation with God. Soooo many sweet memories, deep soul searching & soul stretching done here! These days, as God has moved me on to another project of prayer, He has gifted my heart with this space of remembrance.

See, I don’t have the time to tend it and the bamboo has stretched up and the leaves have fallen over the paths, but His Grace extended in that time, extends to now and always. So many lessons learned, but the greatest I think, was/is the lesson of space. It was learning to seek Him and identify the busyness of life and make room for prayer time with Him ev-er-y-day. His time takes priority and everything else flows from that…not the other way around.

Our prayer lives should not be only giving God some list of things we think need to happen. Prayer is a time to sit with Him, enjoy the breeze together, quiet our soul and listen for His still, small voice.

 

Life IS a labyrinth, when you think about it! Our steps of life, centered around God…sometimes we are father away from the Center of His will than we should be, or want to be, but He is always there guiding and calling us home to Himself. He is not moved or shifted by what the world throws at us. Every moment of our lives is about His pulling us towards Him in life lessons of Trust, steps of Faith and God’s unending Love is blanketed (like the bamboo leaves!) all over our every step.

Prayer takes us right to God…no missteps, no faltering…our part is to make the space, no matter the circumstance.      

When Daniel learned that the order had been signed, he went home. In an upstairs room of his house there were windows that faced toward Jerusalem. There, just as he had always done, he knelt down at the open windows and prayed to God three times a day.

Daniel 6:10

You, Lord, give perfect peace
    to those who keep their purpose firm
    and put their trust in You.

Isaiah 26:3