Perspective

As I steadily smooth in to my new life in the Big Apple, fewer things seem newsworthy as I become acclimatised and thus it feels as though I neglect this blog when in fact I feel guilty every week that goes by without a post. So today I am going to share something just for the heck of it. It is not necessarily a New York City experience per se, but this is where I realized what I'm about to share so this blog may still be the correct forum, right? 

So many times, especially as New Yorkers, we can look past the things happening around us because they don't affect us directly. It's easy to walk past homeless beggars on the street and pay no attention to them because once you've come across ten people over time with the same 'occupation', you somewhat become numb to compassion. You don't get angry at this social injustice which is clearly not normal - and definitely not what was purposed for anyone under the sun. You now simply view people as unfortunate. Unlucky. A statistic. A number.

Funny enough, with this distorted view of our fellow human beings we also lose perspective and perspective, I have learned, can change your life.

How is it that everyone believes that the challenges they face are of such diabolical proportions that the world is about to end? How many people ever take time to remove themselves from a situation and look with a new set of eyes? As I said, perspective will change your life. You worry that the economy is going down and you can't afford to maintain your lifestyle when in Ethiopia there is a child who might not live to see his teens because his reality is that he has no access to a basic human right: clean water. Who has the bigger problem?

I can go on the whole day with comparisons, but I won't. I just want to share something my pastor, Carl Lentz, shared with me this evening: "Have you ever thought that you might not need a change of position but a change of perspective?" You see, with perspective, your challenge won't go anywhere. The mountain won't move. But the way you climb it might.

Proverbs 29:18 says that people with no vision perish. Therefore the opposite of that, people with vision greatly prospering, must be true as well. Is perspective, then, not a form of vision?

Have a great week...