a new view, in brief

When I was younger, I thought that being a Christian meant being outraged by immoral behavior. I am now on a personal mission to understand people and their perspectives before reacting to their behavior. I'm calling it "project empathy."

the 'eternal perspective' concept again

I had the chance to speak last Sunday on having an eternal perspective. In the few days since then, it's been fascinating to watch myself try to live out my challenge. And with my heightened awareness, I'm becoming increasingly perturbed to recognize how often I allow myself to lose eternal perspective and revert back to my material perspective.

A good metaphor is the lost hiker who ascends the high point to see something she cannot see otherwise. What does she do when she gets to the top? Does she close her eyes? Does she scamper back down, freightened by the height of her new vantage point? Or does she take a long gaze from it, memorize the view and then take to the descent with renewed purpose and strategy?

The purpose of perspective is to gain a clearer understanding of reality. A view from a high point allows the lost hiker to pick out the easiest path, determine her position, and plan her destination. It wouldn't make sense for her, after having made the ascent, to ignore the purpose for having done so. Yet I'm finding that this is so often what I do. I receive revelation, God gives me vision, and I think sometimes my response is the equivalent to closing my eyes (or at least cutting short my gaze) or even running away scared.

Doesn't make much sense. I guess me new question is: where am I in the process? Am I making the ascent, trying to figure out what to do with the view, or making the descent and starting out with a new (and better) picture of where I'm headed?

Not sure yet.

Jeff

just a question

I often wonder what my outlook on life would be like if I had never experienced grace. In such a state, what would my view of someone be if that someone asked me "If you were to die today, do you know if you would go to heaven or hell?"?

I'm still alive

I'll explain later.

maximizing under constraint

I've spent the last couple of months really trying to focus on people.  

When I was in high school and college, I was what you might call a recluse.  I did my best to ignore other people, and I only dealt with them when I had to use them to get something done.  Sound a little selfish?  Yeah, it does to me too.

So as I mentioned in the last update, I've been making more of an effort to spend time with people, and not just for favors.  I'm discovering the most difficult part of this is the time constraint.  The simple reality is that there is never enough time in a day to say and do everything that really needs to be said and done.  There is never enough time to finish the conversation, or complete the thought.  Time is the ultimate constraint.  So how do we maximize under this constraint? 

I've been studying the Synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark and Luke), and learning a little bit about how Jesus operated his ministry.  It's kind of fascinating to note that this man--God himself--picked just 12 people to really pour his life into.  It speaks volumes to the value of relationships that Jesus would have chosen to give so much to so few.  Why didn't he take the time to meet and greet everyone on the planet?  Wouldn't that have made it easier for us to believe?  I mean, how hard would it have been for God to get everyone in the world together at some gigantic worldwide conference, show off a few miracles, shake everyone's hand (or give them a hug if that's their thing), and just call it good?  Not hard at all, I wouldn't think.  

But that's not what he did.  Instead, he sent a man to us--someone who shared the burden of human experience, and someone that worked with his disciples on a personal level.  He didn't spend his days trying to meet as many people as he could.  He got a few guys together, and lived life with them.  These are the relationships he focused on.  Jesus dealt with the time constraint by multitasking.  He just hung out with his crew.  I love it.

This argument has the potential to be taken to the extreme.  I could, for example, use it in it's purest form to convince myself to stop meeting people and caring about them.  For example:  I won't have time to really develop a meaningful relationship with him anyway. . .why waste the time?  Or, I'd really like to listen to her problems, but she's not "one of my 12," so I'm really not obligated to.

It's definitely something to watch out for, especially for those of us that have the tendency to withdraw from people anyway.  I think the thing to remember is that developing quality relationships with people in one's "circle of influence" is the really just the best use of time.  This doesn't mean leaving others out, it just means starting with what one has: start small.  

I'd love to hear your thoughts.