Practicing Perspective

What’s the difference between a happy person and a miserable one?

Have you ever noticed some people are always happy? They seem to find the best possible outcome of every situation. When you speak to them, you leave feeling better about yourself and the world around you.

Then there are also people who are always down. Talking with them sucks the life out of you. Nothing seems to go right for them. The world is out to get them.

What’s the difference?

Perspective.

There are people all over the world who scrape by to make ends meet. They aren’t sure where their next meal is going to come from, yet they share with others. They laugh heartily. They sing and smile. They have joy. For many people, to be in such dire circumstances would be more than they could bear, yet for these people, what they do not have is insignificant to what they do.

They have a different perspective on life.

Tragedy seems to come in threes. It may present with more or fewer troubling circumstances, but three seems to be the common, magic number. When problems begin to stack on one another, it is harder to breathe. It’s like stones are being stacked on our chest, and all we can think about are those stones crushing and suffocating the life out of us. We are absolutely sure the stones will kill us. But they don’t. They haven’t yet. And they don’t have to in the future.

Nothing is permanent in this life. Things are temporal. Pleasure is temporal. Life is temporal. Even your personality can be changed (and likely has already). Change is the only constant in this life.

That should bring hope to everyone. The storm you’re in is temporary.

What we tend to do, however, is focus on our storms.

When you’re dealing with tragedy in your life, all you can concentrate on is the tragedy. You eat, sleep, and breathe this tragedy, and when you do, it crushes you. Those who have that contagious joy don’t have fewer tragedies; they simply see through the tragedy to hope.

When you’re in a relationship that is struggling, it is easy to see all the negative in the relationship, and especially in the other person. So how do people find joy in relationships? Are they somehow blessed with fewer struggles? NO! They choose to see the good in the relationship and the other person in spite of the current struggle. When that happens, they resolve conflict more quickly and feel happier in the relationship.

So how do we gain this new perspective that breathes life?

1. We remember that this life is fleeting, and we have been given hope of resurrection, forgiveness, and inheritance through Jesus Christ. If you’ve been saved in Jesus, you have this hope. It needs to drive your life. This life and its troubles is not all there is. And Jesus promised to be with us, so we are never alone in our troubles.

2. We look for the good going on around us and in other people even in the storm. This will take practice. We, in our consumeristic, selfish culture, are used to seeing the problems more than the solutions in ourselves, others, and the situations we find ourselves in. It is discipleship to hope for good through love (1 Corinthians 13; Philippians 2:14).

3. Once we find the good (in self, others, situations, etc.), we focus on that. Satan will try to tempt us back into focusing on the negative and being consumed by darkness, but we don’t have to give in. When we focus on the good in our spouses, we fight less. When we focus on the good in even the worst situation, we find hope faster. When we focus on the good in us, we fight depression.

These steps aren’t easy, but they’re necessary. They take practice, especially if you’re used to seeing the negative. May we all find perspective that breathes joy in this world in spite of this world.

Seasons

Fall is a beautiful time of year.  The transition between summer, where plants are alive and temperatures are uncomfortably warm, and winter, where plants are dormant and temperatures are uncomfortably cold, is a window of pleasantness that can inspire the soul. To see the trees go from green to yellow to red and watch the animals scurry along getting ready for the bleakness of winter is, in many ways, rejuvenating.

This weekend I went up to the mountains to see the colors of the aspens and scrub oaks in all their autumnal glory. My family and I saw such colors and many deer and even a bear. We witnessed the grandeur of new places with majestic views and rushing streams.  We saw waterfalls and quaint towns. And everywhere was the feeling of fall – that transition to get ready for another busy mountain season.

Normally, such a trip this time of year into the mountains would provide opportunity to go where we want to go with comfortable (borderline chilly) temperatures and dry roads inviting us to explore the kaleidoscope of color that awaits.  This year, however, we were greeted by mountains capped with snow and temperatures that were downright cold.  The roads that usually invited us were wet and slick.

Yet we would not be undone by this unexpected change.  Instead of retreating and waiting for a better opportunity, we trudged forward and welcomed the unexpected.  Because of our boldness for adventure, we have pictures of mountains vibrant with color yet capped with snow.  We were even snowed on in one expansive valley above 11,000 feet on the last day of September! Coming down the mountain to return home, we were surprised by a magnificent rainbow at the summit of Molas Pass looking back toward the Animas River Valley.

It was totally worth it to brave the cold, wet weather to see what we had never seen before.

All this exploration of the change of seasons made me think about our lives.

We set things up so that we can live a certain way, and unexpectedly, God allows an abrupt change in our lives.  Some people have unexpected children.  Some have unexpected job changes.  Some even have unexpected changes within themselves.

Everything changes.  Everything is supposed to change.  Someone once said something regarding business that relates to all of life, “Change or die.”

But are you ready for change?  Do you handle change smoothly like the changing of the seasons, or does change feel like the severe storm that blows through and leaves you in a different time zone?

Some people resist change.  They want everything to be great, like it always has been, but they don’t realize that it hasn’t always been great.  There are always struggles.  There will always be struggles.  There is no possible way for things to remain the same.

So, the only logical option is to accept that change is coming and jump on board.

Within our very lives, change is expected.  Jesus loves you no matter where you were when you met him, but he loves you too much to leave you there.  He wants you to be changed. Daily. He wants you to become like him.

You have a choice.  You can joyfully embrace and seek after the change expected, and in doing so become the beautiful transition like fall in the mountains. Or you can resist. That resistance will not bloom like flowers in spring.  What usually happens when we resist change is we become more bitter and resentful.  Our trees begin to wilt and die.

How will you encounter the changes in your life?  Remember, you don’t have to face change alone. God has said He will never leave or forsake you.  Jesus said He would be with you always. You don’t have to be afraid of change.  Embrace it.