BY PASTOR DAVID ODOM
Sometimes in our life we go through some circumstances that make us feel like there is no hope. Sometimes life comes at you from every angle and you’re just looking for an answer or a way out. Sometimes we don’t have the means to change our circumstances. However, if we can’t change our circumstances, we can still change our perspective. A famous quote reads “If you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.” Perspective is very important in all aspects of our lives from life, church, family and our jobs. Perspective determines our attitudes, mindset, viewpoint, outlook, and our beliefs. When we speak of a faith perspective it is completely against our human nature. We usually just take things at face value and understand only what is in front of our eyes. Romans 12:2 tells us: “And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect will of God.” So, to change our regular perspective to a faith perspective the Bible tells us it will take a renewing of our mind.”
When I look through the Bible and think about situations of a faith perspective, I immediately go to David and Goliath. David, the young shepherd boy, could have had two possible perspectives. First, he could have been scared by the size of the giant and his mighty armour. Or he could have said “with that size of target and with God on my side there is no way I can miss.” Then comes the Sunday church-going perspective, “I have to get up and go to church today” or “ I get to get up and give a little time back to God since He has given me so much.” Most of the time we don’t look at it from our faith perspective.
We must always look at life through a faith perspective because if not we may miss out on some of life’s great blessings. I think sometimes we miss out because sometimes our blessings come disguised as problems. We can’t even recognize them because they come packaged up differently. Sometimes we pray for God to take care of our enemies. Then God begins to move us into deeper waters. Then when the water gets too deep we start to complain again. God, I need out of these deep waters. God, I am about to drown out here all alone. So, then we end up trying to pray back out of a prayer that God was answering for us because it came disguised as a problem. Sometimes God calls us to the deeper water so He can drown our enemies instead of us. We just don’t recognize it.
Other perspectives on other smaller things in life include: Cow manure for instance can be looked at as either something to shovel up and get rid of or to someone else it’s free fertilizer. Same with old cars. Some see them as junk and scrap metal and others see a diamond in the rough. We should be so thankful that God didn’t throw us out and scrap our life. He saw the worth that He could bring to our lives.
The second definition of perspective says it gives the impression of a height, width, depth and position of something in relation to its view from a particular point. In other words, your problems will be as big as you make them in comparison to the God that you serve. If we follow God from a distance then our problems will seem impossible, but the closer that we follow God the smaller our problems will seem. We serve a mighty big God. You’ve heard this many times, “We need to stop telling God how big our problems are and need to start telling our problems about how big our God is.”
Changing our perspective will make all the difference in the world. When I think of a harvest I think of a farmer gathering all the crops and what a great blessing that is, but that harvest didn’t come without a lot of hard work. Then the harvest itself is also hard work. The corn, beans, and potatoes aren’t going to pick themselves. It takes lots of hard work. We also love the story of the shouting and the walls coming down. Just don’t forget on the other side of the wall is the beginning of the battle. It’s about the perspective that we choose each morning that we get up. Start tomorrow off with a faith perspective. God bless and have a great day!!
(The Solution Column is provided by Pastor Brandon Young of Harmony Free Will Baptist Church, Hampton, and associate pastor, David Odom.)