perspective

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For my birthday last month my mother bought me Sarah Young's devotional: Jesus Calling. We established a long time ago that I am terrible at daily devotions (see Embrace Mentors), so it should come as no surprise that I opened the book for the first time today. "Ironically" the attached ribbon that serves as a bookmark was nestled between March 13 and March 14.

The devotion was about living above your circumstances. Trouble in this life is a given, but by keeping our focus on God we can "face this endless flow of problems with good cheer." A perfect companion since I am reading the book of Job today!

The line that really ministered to me was this: "You gain My perspective on your life [when you spend time with Me], enabling you to distinguish between what is important and what is not."

Yesterday I became incredibly angry about something that I now see was entirely unimportant. It wasn't the first time this has happened. In fact, I'm guessing every one of us has wasted countless hours on worry, anger, fear, anxiety, etc., over a situation that wasn't at all important to God. Not that He doesn't care about what we are going through--He cares about everything!--but He wants us to trust Him with our worries so we can enjoy life.

Astonishingly enough, after I took a walk with God and prayed about my anger I was able to come back to my office, focus on my work, and shrug off the entire thing as not worth my energy. It was just that simple!

To further remind me about the importance of perspective, I came across an article about a husband who, "trying to help", shaved his infant daughter's head while his wife was at work. Needless to say his wife was not impressed. However, she had bills to pay, deadlines to meet, and a happy healthy child whose hair would grow back. In the grand scheme of things, she was able to step back, look at her beautiful bald daughter and say, "This is the least of my worries."

EMBRACE PERSPECTIVE. God's perspective.


Stuck in my head: Stevie Nicks singing Landslide.

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