Perspective

My mother used to say that “we all see straight with our own crooked eye” and it took me forever to understand that she meant we can always find a way to justify our own way of thinking no matter how foolish it may be. Solomon spent an awful lot of time trying to teach us the importance of gaining wisdom yet in the end, with all the wives (700) and concubines (300) he had, he allowed his women to turn his heart away from the Lord and it led to his undoing. Prov. 14:12 tells us that “There is a way that seems right to a man but its end is the way of death.”

Trust me, I’ve had some wild ideas in my lifetime and tried to convince myself and others that I was dead right. Boy, did I end up looking foolish in the end! Now that I have some, shall we say, maturity, I know to wait a few days before rushing into anything and weigh my ideas before charging full steam ahead. This usually saves me a lot of embarrassment and gives me time to look at things from all sides. Perspective can change with time and I find it’s wise to be able to revisit things that you were once so dogmatic about and see if your outlook has softened with time. Sometimes you become more passionate about certain issues; sometimes, you don’t even remember why you once cared at all.

Many of us take things extremely personally and can’t see beyond this very moment. Having an eternal perspective helps us to realize that the things we are stressing about today will not be as important to us next month or even next week. One year from now, we may not even remember why we’re upset or crying or anxious. In the scheme of eternity, what really matters is people’s lives, their souls, the hurtful words we’ll wish we’d never spoken, the “I love yous” we’ll wish we had spoken, the hours we wanted to spend with loved ones and not the overtime hours we worked, etc. And we can do something about those things right now in this present moment because we have this present moment.

Pretend you have a movie camera and can watch a film of the greatest moments of your life. What will they be? Who will be in them? How about the worst moments of your life? What will those look like and who might be in those? You still have an opportunity to edit some of those worst moments by making amends if they need to be made, by forgiving people if they need to be forgiven, by letting go of things and people need to be released so that you can move forward without any lead weights holding you back.

I’ve said, “Well, I’ll never___ ____ ___,” about a lot of things in my day and I tell you I’ve had to eat those words more times than I can count. I’ve grown and I’ve grown up and my perspective has changed with time. I’ll bet yours has too. What say you? Ready for a do-over?