What's Your Perspective?

Ever been stuck somewhere?   I have.  I got lost, well not really lost, but quite disoriented, in the middle of Toowoomba, in the city centre, last year.   I quite enjoy driving around Toowoomba.  It is a fairly easy place to get around, quite well set out, with some good arterial roads that take you fairly directly to where you need to be.    There are quite a few points where you can see almost all the way across the city, along some of the main arterial roads, and it's easy to see where you need to go and how to get there. 

But, the city centre, like many city centres, I guess, was quite a confusing place to be, for me anyway.   I guess it was because I couldn't see where I was going.   There were a lot of buildings close together, some of them quite tall.   There were side streets going off at different angles that led to other little side streets.  There were one way streets and no right turns that left my sense of direction in a muddle.    Every time I tried to take a short cut to where I wanted to be, it left me deeper and deeper in confusion.    I couldn't pull over easily and consult the map, and I just kept going around in circles and getting more and more frustrated and losing confidence.   I needed to get out of there. 

Getting out of the inner city was a matter of taking the busiest street and following it until things cleared, the traffic thinned and I found a more familiar street, where I could 'see' where I was going.   It was also helpful to find the map and get an overview of where I'd come from, where I needed to be, and how to get there. 

My point with all this rambling?   My point is perspective.   In the inner city, I became quite confused and disoriented and pretty convinced I was hopeless at direction and navigating and driving, etc.  In the outer suburbs, I was quite confident.   The city hadn't changed, my driving hadn't changed, my ability hadn't changed - my perspective had. 

It's like that with our view of ourselves, isn't it?    We can become confused and disoriented and disabled when we're 'stuck' in the middle of a perspective that doesn't allow us to view things correctly, when we're hemmed in by structures and barriers that distort our sense of direction and our view of things, including ourselves.     We need to see the bigger picture to get a true perspective of who we are and where we are.  We need to have a look at the road map again.  That bigger picture is God's perspective and how He sees things, how He sees us, and the road map is His Word.    

A couple of questions to ask ourselves -

What or who has shaped/is shaping our perspective of ourselves?

Can we step back and allow God to show us His perspective? 

Isaiah 26:3  You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on You, because he trusts in You.