Vertical Vision

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When I have an issue, I do not have time for or do not want to address, I ignore it as if it will go away.  That senseless strategy only works for a limited time.

My vision is the perfect example.  I have glasses for distance that I have used intermittently for several years.  Now I require the aid of readers for smaller, up close print.  I know I need bifocals, but it has been easier to neglect that fact than to address it.

Yesterday I happened to have my readers on when I pulled out my iPhone to look at a text message.  I have the 6 Plus, so the screen and font are bigger, but when I viewed my phone with the advantage of my readers, it was like a whole new world opened up before me.  A crisp, clear, bright and beautiful world.  I did not realize how bad I had been struggling until that moment when my world was brought into focus.  Wow!  What a difference.

It occurred to me that this is not only representative of vision for daily tasks but also daily living.  When I become overwhelmed, exhausted or distracted, I am vulnerable to neglecting my “gospel glasses” that aid vertical vision.  That is always to my detriment because without them my life becomes blurry, unfocused, and I struggle to make sense of things.  Possibilities appear small, and my insufficiencies great.

Why would I want to navigate life with an obscured perspective?  There is a whole new world, a whole new life available when I see things through a lens focused on biblical truths.  To live life out of focus is to miss out on so much beauty and clarity that is available to me.

I am grateful for the reminder that played out before me yesterday.  Perspective makes all the difference.  May we not forget to put on our glasses every day, friends.

Matthew 6:22-23~ Your eye is a lamp that provides light for your body. When your eye is good, your whole body is filled with light.  But when your eye is bad, your whole body is filled with darkness. And if the light you think you have is actually darkness, how deep that darkness is!

The Life Is Not the Last Chapter

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I am as inadequate to the world as the world is to me, and when we learn that is as it was designed to be, that is GRACE.

Thankfully this life is not the last chapter.  As it is now is not how it will end.  For those who have resigned to their insufficiency and submitted to belief in a sufficient God the story ends differently.  Our temporary life concludes with an abolishment of pain, suffering, evil, fighting and discontent.  These things, the broken things, are all around us and seemingly more prolific every day.

Life isn’t fair, and on the surface of many circumstances God seems an unjust God.  That is the treasure of the Bible, however. God’s word warns us of it all, injustices of every kind.  Just as we have been apprised of the tragedies of this life so have we been promised a great trust in the next.  

The last chapter is ironically the beginning.  The beginning of a life free from a world imbued with pain and suffering.  We have this great hope, friends.  By grace for all those who have believed through faith and not of our own adequacy, (Ephesians 2:8), the crown is ours.  

The story has a beautiful ending free of tears and tragedies.  The story ends with a new beginning.  A beginning that has no ending and cast amidst perfect peace and triumphant joy.  Our hope is not here in this frail and fleeting place.  For that, we may all rejoice!