Ordinary things often trigger the most extraordinary thoughts and memories. When I step into an elevator, for instance, I often think, I wonder how things look from God’s point of view?

The incongruous connection becomes clear when you know that elevators recall memories of my daughters when they were three or four years old. We have always traveled a great deal, and my wife and I made it a point to take our children with us at every opportunity.

At this writing, my three daughters are nearly as tall as or taller than their mother; but I still remember when my youngest daughter’s view in a crowd was limited to a field of knees, belt buckles, backsides, and purses. My memory holds some clear snapshots of the look on my young daughter’s face when we stepped into a hotel elevator to go downstairs. Everything was fine until that luxurious but limited space started getting crowded. It seemed that at every floor people tried to squeeze themselves in.

Some people battle a fear of close places well into maturity, but the concern is universal among members of our knee-high population. If you were on that elevator when things got crowded, it probably wouldn’t bother you much. The reaction from my little girl, however, was purely predictable. Her little arms would shoot straight up, and her eyes would rivet me with urgent intensity.

Have you ever thought about the view available to the typical three- or four-year-old on a crowded elevator? I’ll never forget the sight of my little girl’s arms reaching upward and the way her eyes sought me out in quiet desperation. She was saying, “Pick me up, Daddy. I can’t see from down here. There has to be a better perspective than the one I have from where I am.”

STRANDED AMONG THE KNEES AND PURSES OF ANXIETY

Once I picked her up and elevated her to the level of her father’s eye view, she had no problem. If I was distracted or my overly full hands left my daughter stranded down among the growing crowd of knees and purses, her young mind became despondent and full of anxiety. I can imagine her saying to herself, I can’t see very good!

Worship is the process of stretching your arms to the heavens in the universal sign of surrender and desperation. It is the way earthbound creatures rivet the attention of their heavenly Creator. When you worship, it is as if you look at your heavenly Father and say, “I don’t like the way things look down here, Daddy. Would You lift me up? I want to see things from Your point of view.”

Elevators always remind me that the way things looked to me and the way things looked to my children were two totally different things. That helps me understand that the way things look from our earthbound position is totally different from the way they look from God’s-eye view. His throne is “high and lifted up.”

God never intended to limit your vision to the low point of view. He always intended for you to view things from the highest perspective, and worship is His way of lifting us above the mundane press of our enclosed space to see things from His point of view.

If all of this seems overly complicated, return to the mental picture of a nervous three-year-old with his arms lifted straight toward his daddy’s face: this is the posture of worship.

Unfortunately life’s insecurities and challenges aren’t limited to elevators and other crowded enclosures. While I was writing this book, I received an urgent call on the road and learned that my middle daughter had been struck with a dangerous physical condition that required immediate surgery.

The surgery went well, but the experiences before the surgery proved traumatic for my youngest daughter. She wasn’t prepared to see her older sister suffering in pain as an attendant wheeled her away to prepare for surgery (who is, for that matter?). When I noticed how the crisis affected our youngest daughter, I told my wife that if she would stay at the hospital with our middle daughter, then I would spend the day with our youngest at home.

SHE JUST WANTED TO BE NEAR DADDY

She is usually very independent, but all thoughts of sleeping alone in her own bedroom had vanished. She just wanted to be near Daddy. She didn’t need wise words of philosophy or religious principle; she needed the reassurance of my viewpoint on the matter.

Once I confirmed that the surgery went well, I knew I needed to lift my youngest daughter’s point of view too. I took her in my arms and said, “It’s okay. Yes, we had a problem and we were all concerned, but everything is okay now.”

The moment my daughter realized, My daddy is not worried about this, it transformed her whole attitude, and she instantly reverted to her playful self. Neither is your heavenly Father worried about conquering circumstances. He is just concerned that you survive the crisis intact.

No matter how educated, self-motivated, successful, or independent you become as an adult, the journey of life inevitably will bring you to your knees in some way. You are like a three-year-old in a crowded elevator. The expanse of jostling knees and purses offers no clues to your future and provides no hope for a better view.

When that happens, you need more than an attitude adjustment; you need an altitude adjustment. You need to view circumstances as your heavenly Father sees them.

If anyone should have nightmares about the end times, it isn’t your Father. The Creator of the cosmos hasn’t spent a single feverish second struggling to figure out how He will finance the future. He isn’t worried about how much they’re going to give Him at the celestial pawn shop for His heavenly throne. I doubt that He is worried about any of the things that you and I worry about.

Worship permits you to see things as your heavenly Father sees them. It lifts you from the pit of humanity’s problems to a higher and purer perspective from the seat of Divinity. The power of a higher perspective is accessed through worship. Worship will lift your spirit. Worship will change your destiny. Worship will rearrange your future.

God’s Eyeview p. 1-4, Tommy Tenney, From GodChasers.network, The Ministry of Tommy Tenney

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318-44-CHASE
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