Yesterday morning, my daughter awoke at 4 am and as tradition would have it, came to get in bed with me and her daddy. After getting her bundled up in the covers and having wrapped my arms around her, I laid there watching her drift off to sleep. As she peacefully slept, my mind drifted to thoughts of my Church Family and the service we had the Sunday before.
It had been a busy weekend, many of us had volunteered at a local Christian Music Festival and were recovering from that. There were others, for different reasons, not able to attend service on Sunday morning and at first I felt a familiar feeling of loneliness try and grip me. As our Worship Pastor, Melinda, began leading us into the first song God began talking to me about perspective. He said that I could allow myself to look at what I see in the natural, or I can choose to look at things from a different angle. I began to think about The Church and how broad it is! It is a large Family that I belong to and a massive vision that God has called me too! I began to think about the other life-giving Churches in the area (my extended family) who were at that moment worshipping God and how we, as the Body of Christ – globally, over the next week would gather many times to worship our Father God and learn more about who He is and who He has destined us to be. I thought about how at that moment, I was joining my voice with the angels of heaven in bringing praise and adoration to my King; and how even though some of my Church Family couldn’t be there we were still connected. Suddenly, I didn’t feel so alone! My perspective had changed and with it changed my emotions, thoughts and view of the moment.
The right perspective can change a depressed heart into a grateful heart every time! This is why the Holy Spirit had Paul write to the Church, in Philippians 4:6 – 8 “Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God; and the peace of God which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus. Finally, brethren, whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue and if there is anything praise worthy – meditate on these things.”
It is so easy to let the wrong perspective steal from us! We do it with seasons of life:
If we are in Middle School, we want to be in High School. Instead of loving the fact that we have everything we need provided for us and can just crawl into Mommy’s lap and be loved on, we want to be older – taking care of our own things making our own decision. What a gift the season of childhood is, but we see it as a problem to be conquered.
If we are single, we want to be married. We don’t see the beauty in being single, we see it as a curse to be rebuked and miss out on the wonderful memories that could be made and the intimate moments that could be shared with God.
If we are newly weds, we want to be parents; if we have young kids we want them to be older – then when they are older we wish they were young again! From starting out your marriage relationship to parenthood, there is a gift in the season that can only be unwrapped in that moment. It takes the right perspective to see the gift that can only be enjoyed in that season of life.
We do it with past hurts, re-living the pain and refusing to learn from it and move on to what is ahead! We allow the pain to define us and hold us in a place that we feel is safe but in reality is a prison. God is so good at mending hearts! It only takes us being willing to lay our heart in His hands and allowing His peace to be our guard instead of the prison we have begun to call home.
I don’t know what you are facing today, but I want to challenge you to see things from God’s perspective! Allow God to encourage you to think on lovely things, see the gift in the moment, embrace it and watch your heart be filled with thanksgiving!