The Importance Of Keeping Perspective
Have you ever walked into another room and can’t remember fortheloveofallthatisgoodandholy why you went to that room in the first place? Apparently it’s called "The Doorway Effect" and is a real, actual thing that scientists have studied.
I do it all the time. I have good intentions and open up the door/pantry/computer and I immediately have no idea what I’m doing there. I turn into this robot-like thing, which kind of knows how to act like a human. And when it comes down to it, the robot-pretending-to-be-human is more likely to stare blankly than actually do anything productive.
The point is: we get distracted easily. I quickly lose perspective because of the delicious-looking chocolate Pop Tarts and the mirror I just walked past because “Oh my gosh, I really need to tweeze my eyebrows before I turn into Woody Allen” and the 10 Facebook notifications which leads to a silent, one-sided debate of: “Will Aunt Ida ever stop inviting me to play Farmville; I have never played that stupid game and will never want to play and maybe she is just lonely and I should really call her or send a note or something…”
And don’t even get me started on the distractions of cell phones. My iPhone is this whole other monster in which I will probably spend years of therapy trying to figure out.
But where was I?
Oh yeah, losing perspective.
It’s easy to do.
And it’s especially easy to lose perspective in our walks with the Lord. We proclaim our commitment to serving Him and say we surrender everything, and then we get fired or find out a bad diagnosis or maybe just have a really crappy day where nothing seems to be going right.
And we’re like, “Okay, God. I know I said I surrender everything, but I didn’t mean you had to take away that. And I know I said I would serve you, but there’s this homeless man that keeps getting in my way when I’m driving to my prayer breakfast, and I just don’t have time for that because I’m going to be late and these girls are going to start the Beth Moore study without me.”
I think prayer breakfasts and Beth Moore studies are both great, kingdom-building activities, but sometimes we (myself definitely included) ignore the person on the side of the road because we are busy studying the Good Samaritan instead of being the Good Samaritan. And just like that, we are losing perspective.
We forget that His plans are far beyond anything we could imagine and that this earth is temporary and that our Savior does not waver in His promises. We forget that God has called us to be a people of action and not complacency. We forget that our God is for us and never against us, and sometimes we just can’t see the roses because of the thorns.
And true to His promises, He makes everything new. True to His promises, He turns ashes into beauty. True to His promises, the thorns were helping grow the beautiful roses all along.
“I used to be afraid of failing at something that really mattered to me, but now I’m more afraid of succeeding at things that don’t matter.”