A Perspective Shift

As I was praying this week, not sure what to write about, I continued searching God’s direction in my writing.

Sometimes the thought of not having anything to write can be daunting, but the same can be true when I’ve got too many thoughts in my mind to write out. In both cases, I can rely on one of my go-to passages of scripture to put some order to my thoughts.

Isaiah 26:3-4 "You will keep in perfect peace those whose minds are steadfast,  because they trust in you. Trust in the Lord forever, for the Lord, the Lord himself, is the Rock eternal."

And then I just start writing. I trust that if God wants me to write, and I believe that He does, He will give me the words.

Usually I jump in right where I left off in one of my short stories or my novel, writing the scenes that God puts in my imagination. But today it was something different.

Yes, God still reminded me of a picture in my thoughts, but this time it was a different scene.

Yesterday morning, as our church body sat outside on the beautiful tree canopied patio for the service, I found myself staring up again to the vibrant green leaves against the bright blue backdrop of sky. I love that the same view can look so different from week to week.

Depending on the season, the paired colors are sometimes green and blue, green and gray, brown and gray, sometimes even green and white, on a cloudy day. But yesterday I was drawn to the tree farther in the background, accenting the sky painted stripes of blue, white, and blue. (I love admiring God’s artwork in the sky, unique every day.)

All while I was admiring the beauty far above, I realized that immediately in my line of sight, dangling from a bare stick branch in the tree right above me was a single brown leaf, holding on for dear life, fighting against its pending death from the autumn winds and winter cold.

With my view focused on the pure-white heaven clouds (you know, the big puffy clouds you thought to be heaven when you were a child) and bright blue sky, I was completely unaware of the ugly little leaf right in front of me. But when I was busy analyzing the stubborn little guy, the heavenly perspective behind it was lost.

I’ve been sitting with this image since then. I think it provides the perfect analogy of life, especially in its current state. So let’s take this image and be reminded to focus our perspective on heaven, making it easier to look past the ugly stuff.

Because once our attention gets stuck on the unattractive distractions of this earth, we could miss the vibrant, colorful beauty of an eternal perspective

that God could be trying to show us as a blessing.

2 Corinthians 4:16-18 "Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal."