Perspective

My computer crooks its finger and invites me in. The wallpaper picture from Alaska whispers peace with deep teal water, dark purple mountains, and a frozen waterfall. At least I think they’re mountains! I can’t remember the landscape when we took this particular picture – we took hundreds.

So as I stared into it the other day, my imagination left the ship and began to climb up the deep gulley where the water started down. Then I realized I didn’t know if I could make the top in a few steps or whether it would take weeks! I looked at the evergreen mass and tried to decide whether I was looking at moss – in which case I’m up in a snap – or trees. If it’s trees, I’m giving up and climbing back on the cruise ship because there’s no way I’m going to make it.

I had no perspective. At least I thought that was the word. So I looked it up.

“The appearance of objects, buildings, etc., relative to each other, as determined by their distance from the viewer.” There were no birds, buildings or people to give me an idea of what I was looking at. And I realized that without a constant, something to count on, I was floundering.

“A visible scene, especially one extending to a distance; vista.” When I’m on a trip and driving long hours and distances, I make it through by fastening my attention on some sign or exit down the road. Without them, we’d all be sleeping drivers! When I was a child and the interstates had yet to be built, every trip was an adventure because there were interesting landmarks and bizarre “World’s Largest Egg Carton”-type stops with souvenir shops. Then the interstate came along and the drive no longer mattered. The trip was all about the destination. We had lost perspective.

“A view over some distance in space or time.” We all leap through days and months of our lives by fixing on the next vacation or event. Without that timemark life loses its perspective – one day blends into the next and boredom threatens. Or we run so fast that we wake up one day and another three years has gone. Young people think they’ll never die; old people seeing it coming faster and faster.

“A mental view or prospect.” Proper perspective puts us in our place, timewise. We are a breath that shows up on a cold wind. “You have made my days a mere handbreadth; the span of my years is as nothing before you. Each man’s life is but a breath.” (Psalm 39:5) If I’m looking merely at my time here on earth, it’s gone so quickly I might as well not even have been here.

“The faculty of seeing all the relevant data in a meaningful relationship.” However…my life matters. I have important work to do here. “For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do." (Ephesians 2:10) Work that was planned for me before I even set foot on this earth. “All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be." (Psalm 139:16)

And I am a child of the King, the Creator of the Universe! “For He chose us in Him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love He predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will….” (Ephesians 1:4-5)

My perspective? Peace for now; joy for later. Everlasting joy in the presence of my God!

(Definitions were taken from www.dictionary.com: Random House Dictionary, 2011; Collins English Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged 10th Edition, 2009.)