Perspective Is Critical To Your Faith

Why is it that we are so quick to think we know what is going on in a particular situation when we really don’t have the whole story? Why do we so often jump to conclusions about someone’s actions or behavior when our perspective is clearly limited? How is this related to our relationship with (and faith in) God?

Limited Perspective

So many things happen in our world today and we are often very quick to assume we know the whole story, including others’ motivations, circumstances, and intent. The truth is that we know very little about these things just by looking at a picture or video on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram.

Even when we are eyewitnesses to an incident, we are likely missing huge pieces of the picture. We might think we were present enough to get the full picture, but that is really impossible. We simply cannot know all that is going on just by looking at things from our perspective.

Three Witness Perspectives

I saw a pastor describe this idea with a perfect example. He described how he had seen a television ad in which the very same incident was portrayed from three different perspectives. Each time the perspective changed, so did the understanding of the viewer.

From the first perspective, the viewer sees a skinhead who is full of tattoos and piercings. The skinhead runs headlong into a man dressed in a suit like a businessman, taking him to the ground in a violent collision. Clearly, from the viewer’s standpoint, the skinhead is attacking the businessman for some reason.

From the second perspective, the viewer sees two burly men get out of a black SUV directly behind the skinhead. As they start walking toward the skinhead, he runs toward the businessman and collides with him. From this perspective, it appears as if the skinhead in running from the two men, likely undercover officers of some sort, and accidentally collides with the businessman.

Finally, the third perspective is from directly above the scene. From this perspective, the viewer sees a crane moving a huge safe from one building to another. The safe begins to slide off the scaffolding and is clearly going to fall directly on the businessman. The skinhead sees this and – risking his own life – tackles the businessman to save him from certain death!

Witness or Participant?

Without the benefit of the overhead view of this scene, we would each jump to various conclusions about the people involved. This is hard enough if we are the witnesses to a scene like this.

What happens when we are the one who gets tackled?

Folks, as Christian business owners and leaders, we are going to be “tackled” from time to time. These situations will appear to come out of nowhere. They will hurt. The timing will be terrible. We won’t understand them. I could go on, but you get the idea.

The lesson is this: God is big enough to be trusted even when things don’t make sense. No, we are not going to understand everything that He allows to happen to us. We are never going to have His complete perspective. We will not know all of the factors that He considers as He leads us.

That’s okay.

Trust Him

What we do have is an opportunity to trust Him. We know what He has done for us in the past (Romans 5:8), that He created us (Genesis 1:26-27), that He has plans for us (Ephesians 2:10), that He has our best interests at heart (Jeremiah 29:11), and that He will never leave us or forsake us (Hebrews 13:5). We can know that placing our trust in Him will get us through the day – every day – even when it feels like the world has tackled us for no apparent reason.

Trust Him today. Trust Him to lead you on the right path – in life, in your business, with your family, and anything else you can think of. He has the total and complete perspective and He is faithful.

Questions

Do you trust God’s perspective when things happen you don’t understand?

If so, can you give us an example of when you trusted Him?

If not, have you prayed for Him to strengthen your faith in Him?

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