Lately I have been doing a lot of thinking about perspective. It all started when I was talking to Derik Idol about what he might speak on at Winter Retreat and one of the things he mentioned was perspective. Soon after that many different examples of perspective flooded my thought flow, like when I was laying in bed freezing and Sherry said she was hot or when I was sitting in the caf with some students and they were complaining about the “slop” when people are starving to death everyday or me not being satisfied with my 93 Integra that has over 200,000 miles when I am in the richest 1% for even driving a car, so I decided to put my thoughts into a blog.
When I think of perspective I think of how cool it is that we can all think as individuals, have our own opinions, voice our own criticism, and just see things from our vantage point. Perspective is defined by dictionary.com as being the state of one’s ideas, the facts known to one. That is so true (obviously) because sometimes our perspective is shaped by the facts that we know. Ok, lets make this a little more personal so you have an idea of what I am talking about. The Sunday before Christmas I walked to my office to find a big frame in wrapping paper. I picked it up, imagined it being some awesome picture that Picasso painted so I tore into it. When the paper was off I saw a picture and it was anything but Picasso. Lets just say it was “average” at best. It was a pencil sketch of Jesus with the Serenity Prayer hand written at the bottom. I was like uhhhh is this supposed to hang somewhere that people can see. Uhh, no. So this is where the whole perspective thing kicks in. I didn’t think about it much the rest of that day or Monday on my day off but on Tuesday I found out the whole story. I was sitting in staff meeting and we begin to talk about our (yes the whole staff got a drawing) drawings of Jesus. That is when my Senior Pastor dropped the bomb we shall call Perspective. I found out it was from an 80 something year old lady who had suffered from a stroke. Before her stroke she was an artist that painted and drew very beautiful pieces. Her doctor told her it would be good therapy to draw again and she refused, knowing that her work wouldn’t be as high quality as it had been before. After refusing, her daughter told her that the staff at Calvary wanted drawings for Christmas (which was probably a lie because I never told Santa that). So wiith that request this 80 something year old lady who had suffered from a stroke drew my picture of Jesus and hand wrote the Serenity Prayer. Needless to say my perspective was totally changed. My heart was completely broken! My “average” drawing is now a masterpiece that I will probably keep with me through all my years of ministry. It is beautiful now that I know the story.
So I guess my question to you is this: What do you need a change of perspective on in your life?
