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Do you live in a house with stairs? Or perhaps you have stairs to climb in your office building. Or if not, maybe there are stairs to enter your church, your doctor’s office, you... Well, I think we all get the picture. Stairs are everywhere.
The house we currently live in is about 50 years old, but it has been meticulously maintained. You can see in every square inch of the home that the previous owners poured lots of love into it. Why then, did they put it on the market?
The answer lies in the stairs. The house has four levels, and as such, there are plenty of stairs to manoeuver. Apparently the previous lady of this house had bad knees, and the stairs caused her problems.
Interestingly, it is the stairs that I like about the house. It gives the house character! However, I do get the "bad knees" problem as well. No matter how quaint, if a person physically cannot handle stairs, then their house shouldn't stairs.
It truly is all about perspective, isn't it?
In this example, I someone told me why the previous owners didn't like the stairs. Often in life, however, we are not given that information. And so, when someone has a different view on something, our tendency is to judge them. Sometimes our judgments are little... We laugh at their "oddities". But sometimes things like this can lead to persecution, even death. Take, for example, the very, very sad genocide that occurred in Rwanda back in the 1990s. One group of people was deemed "different", and as such, "worthy of death".
Of course, the answer is obvious, right? Our perspective is always the "right" one! Or so it seems by the way we live our lives, point the finger and criticize.
Then, of course, there is our interactions with God. From our "very accurate" perception, we know exactly what we need. Therefore, why isn't God giving it to us? We need good health, for example; we need a better job; we need for our relationships to improve. And when we don't get what "we" need, we turn on God, ask ourselves why He doesn't love us, why our prayers aren't being answered, etc.
It is all a matter of perspective! Just like my perspective on stairs makes my house beautiful, the former owner's perspective makes it unlivable. The problem is, we don't always have an accurate perception of things, and as a result, we don't always know what we need: "We do not know what we ought to pray for..." (Romans 8:26 NIV). Or perhaps what we are sure we need isn't asked for in right motives: "When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives..." (James 4:3 NIV).
What if we saw things from God’s perspective? I can guarantee you that our good, good Father, who, "knows what you need before you ask Him..." (Matt. 6:8b NIV) will give it to you; for hasn't He promised to, "...meet all your needs according to the riches of his glory in Christ Jesus..." (Phil 4:19 NIV)?
Let's stop judging others. Let's understand that we all have a different perspective on things, and let's accept each other, and even appreciate each other, for our differences. In the same way, let's understand that God's perspective is different from ours, but oh, so much better! And when it seems He's not answering our prayers, let's decide to take a step in faith that He knows best!
In His love,
Lyn
Lynona Gordon Chaffart, Speech-Language Pathologist, mother of two, Author -- "Aboard God's Train -- A Journey With God Through the Valley of Cancer", Author and Moderator for The Nugget, a tri-weekly internet newsletter, and Scriptural Nuggets, a website devoted to Christian devotionals and inspirational poems, with Answers2Prayer Ministries. Follow Lyn on Twitter @lynchaffart.
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