Articles
Keeping Perspective
When things are humming along normally we find it easier to maintain a balanced view of life. Seeing things as they truly are and avoiding extremes, blind spots and emotional disruption is called perspective.
Webster’s Online defines perspective as: 2a: the interrelation in which a subject or its parts are mentally viewed; 2b: the capacity to view things in their true relations or relative importance.
It is amazing how quickly this balance can be thrown out of whack. All it takes is one phone call, one bit of bad news, one unexpected turn of events and – CRASH! – we are off the rails.
Job. Obvious choice for illustrating this point is Job. Surely no one has lost so much so quickly than this godly man: flocks, herds, servants, children – gone – and a wife who disappointed him in his darkest hour. In a moment Job’s life turned from wealth, respect, comfort, peace and security to grief, disease, abandonment, false accusation and, perhaps most distressing, uncertainty in his relationship with God.
Such devastation ushered in a season of deep soul searching made all the more difficult by well-meaning but ignorant friends. Their assumptions and pat answers betrayed their own skewed perspectives formulated by poor thinking and over-reliance on tradition rather than revelation. While there is no hint of spiritual deficiency in Job, he still learns and grows from his descent into the valley of the shadow of death.
Moses. While we do not have much insight to Moses’ thoughts when he killed the Egyptian, Stephen offers this tidbit: “And seeing one of them suffer wrong, he defended and avenged him who was oppressed, and struck down the Egyptian. For he supposed that his brethren would have understood that God would deliver them by his hand, but they did not understand” (Ac 7:24-25). It appears that Moses intended to reveal himself as Israel’s liberator, but that quickly unraveled when he was rebuffed and word of the murder quickly spread (Ex 2:13-15).
Moses’ whole world came apart overnight and he fled for his life to Midian. The savior had become a fugitive. It only took 40 years for Moses to learn a whole new perspective on life, one that placed God and not himself at the center. Only then could he truly be a successful servant to God.
Hezekiah. In a day devoid of true medical acumen and procedures, King Hezekiah fell ill (2 Kgs 20). He was still young, just 39 years old, and Judah was in grave danger. Such a godly, strong leader was vital to the nation’s fortunes, yet the prophet Isaiah comes to Hezekiah and says, “Thus says the Lord: ‘Set your house in order, for you shall die, and not live’” (20:1). The very God that Hezekiah depended on for healing has him served with a death warrant.
What to do? “Then he turned face to the wall, and prayed to the Lord, saying, ‘Remember now, O Lord, I pray, how I have walked before You in truth and with a loyal heart, and have done what was good in Your sight.’ And Hezekiah wept bitterly” (20:3). Sometimes the Lord makes us wait on the answer to our prayers – for reasons that only He may know (and not share with us). But on this occasion He swiftly changed course and sent Isaiah back to the king with a reprieve – a fifteen-year extension of life.
Great men in Bible history have been knocked off-kilter by the unexpected. When bad news comes, when our hopes have been disappointed, when heady success turns into miserable failure, we can lose our perspective and become unmoored, drifting and aimless and at the mercy of life’s wind and waves. How do we handle the bewilderment, the doubt, the disjointed feelings that so confuse and trouble us? How do we regain a sense of balance so that we do not plunge over the precipice of despair?
Do not give up on God. Even in times of calm there are aspects of God’s will that do not make sense to us. His nature is higher; His view is broader; His judgment is perfect and untainted by the selfish concerns that compromise our own perspective. “‘If anyone draws back, My soul has no pleasure in him.’ But we are not of those who draw back to perdition, but of those who believe to the saving of the soul” (Heb 10:38-39).
This is not blind allegiance. We need to nurture and feed our faith, develop confidence and trust in God that is unshakeable when everything around us seems to crumble. Surely the events of 2020 have shown us that the things of this world are too unstable to support eternal perspectives. Only the God who inhabits eternity (Is 57:15) can see us through the pitfalls of an evil, fallen world.
Seek for wisdom. “If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who give to all liberally and without reproach, and it will be given to him” (Jas 1:5). But how God supplies that wisdom may rebound directly to us: diligent, prayerful study of His word; seeking advice and guidance from others who have successfully negotiated the challenges of life; healthy reflection upon one’s own experiences, mistakes and successes.
There is no substitute for living awhile. When we personally experience those cycles of life Solomon wrote about in Ecclesiastes, we truly understand that “there is nothing new under the sun.” “Been there, done that” is an outlook that calms panic, draws on experience and keeps one’s head when others are losing theirs.
Seek and accept God’s will. There is great power in trusting the superintendence of God over our lives. Nothing can happen to us that God is not aware of. He can equip us for every situation. Every event can be turned into some advantage for the kingdom: the brief work and untimely death of John the Baptist; Paul’s early persecution of the saints and later his own imprisonment; the martyrdom of most of the apostles and even the crucifixion of Jesus itself. Scripture is the history of God taking vulnerable, flawed but faithful men and allowing them to suffer the worst that Satan has to offer and then giving them victory. Is this all some kind of cruel game God is playing? No, through such trials He is “bringing many sons to glory” (Heb 2:10). If we are confident that our trials are an opportunity for God’s praise, we will better keep our perspective.
