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
29 July 2009
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