Sometimes when we look up all we see is the underside of heaven.
We miss the view that you get when you join Jesus from His vantage point.
Breathtaking
It’s like shaking a resting snow globe. Suddenly the same landscape takes on a new beauty. Things coming down from above, covering everything below with a new sense of magic. Do you remember the childlike ‘Aaahhhh!’ you felt as you watched the sparkly little flakes do their thing?
That.
Because from God’s perspective, there is no ordinary. There is meaning and purpose in the things we are so accustomed to doing and seeing each day. Every encounter, every conversation has the potential of His snowflakes of love falling on and marking them as divine.
But we need to shift positions to even notice it.
When we look up, only to the underside of heaven, we depend on ourselves to figure it out, to find the purpose. We try too hard and we squint too much with little change in our vision.
But what if, instead of just looking up, we ask Jesus to LIFT us up onto His lap, to see what He sees? What if we let HIM shake the snow globe and change the world around us and in us? What if we give up the straining of our near-sighted eyes and the wasted energy we use to try and shake things up on our own?
It seems that a lot of things would change.
Pride would diminish.
Selfishness would take a back seat.
Worry would be minimized.
The desire for control would start to let go.
And we would begin to see the world, our very same landscape, differently. The glimmers of purpose would begin to emerge into our line of vision. The glitter of hope would suddenly appear in the strangest of places. The globe of our own little worlds would expand, and we would begin to see with eyes of full of wonder that God’s passionate love for us extends beyond boundaries to an entire planet of people He longs to call His own.
We would begin to see that He uses us for these purposes, that He loves through us in the simple things we say and do for others, and we become part of the sparkle, the light that He brings to the world. Instead of reaching up, we join Him in reaching down, in reaching out.
The world and our circumstances don’t change, necessarily. But we do.
In a moment of reminiscence, a memory just surfaced that speaks to the same point….
Many moons ago, I remember a vocal coach telling me to approach a high note differently than was my normal tendency. Being an alto, high notes seemed unattainable. But he wisely told me to approach them from the top instead of from underneath. To change my perspective toward the note by looking at it from another angle. Instead of straining to get up to it, I would begin to visualize it from the upper register down. It was amazing the difference that this simple shift in thinking did for my voice.
From top to bottom.
The view is so much better….
Matthew 5:14-15 – You are the light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand and it gives light to everyone in the house.
Psalm 16:11 – You have made known to me the path of life; you will fill me with joy in your presence, with eternal pleasures at your right hand.
James 1:17 – Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.
Daniel 2:21-22- He changes times and seasons, he sets up kings and deposes them. He gives wisdom to the wise and knowledge to the discerning. He reveals deep and hidden things, he knows what lies in darkness and light dwells with him.
