Sometimes in life it is all about the perspective we have.  Often times when we are facing a problem we continually dwell on it.  Thinking about it is warranted because it is obviously a problem, but sometimes when we focus only on the problem it becomes bigger in our life than it has to be leaving us without perspective.  Perspective can be defined as outlook, view, viewpoint, point of view, standpoint, position, stand, stance, angle, slant, attitude, frame of mind, frame of reference, approach, way of looking, interpretation

I saw Joyce Meyer the other day read this letter and knew I had to share it with you.
“Dear Mom and Dad I know since I have moved to college I have not written much.  So I wanted to bring you up to date in this letter.  Please however make sure you are sitting down before you read the letter.  Are you sitting down?   Please sit down before you read the letter.
Well I am doing pretty well now --The skull fracture I received from jumping out of my apartment window due to a fire in my complex shortly after arriving has almost healed.  I only get those sick headaches now once a day.  Luckily a man who works at a gas station witnessed the whole event.  He brought me to the hospital and visited me often.  Due to the fire I had nowhere else to live so he invited me to share his one bedroom basement apartment.  He is a very fine boy, although not well educated and is infected with a slight disease, which I now have, we have fallen deeply in love.  We plan on getting married sometime before my pregnancy begins to show.  Yes I am pregnant.  I know how much you are looking forward to being grandparents.  I know you will welcome the baby and give it the same love as you gave me as a child.  I know that although the father is a different race and religion your tolerance will not allow that to hinder you from welcoming him to the family.  Now that I have brought you up to date at this point I just wanted to tell you there was no fire or skull facture, I was never in the hospital, I am not getting married, I am not pregnant, and there is not even a boyfriend in my life.  However, with all that being said I am failing History and Science, but just wanted you to have a proper perspective when you thought about the situation.”  AuthorUnknown-  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_3Rc3pldeQw


If you received a letter like this from your child, can you imagine how happy you would feel that they were only failing History and Science!  When you put it into “perspective” with all the things that could have been true in the letter, you would realize it is not the end of the world.  It is a problem that can be fixed, resolved, mended, corrected, or solved.  However, there are some things in the letter that would not allow second chances. The point is that in life we allow our self to zoom in on the problems and then before you know it we have lost our perspective of the big picture. I honestly believe it is the reactions to the small things in life, that will determine how we will react to others, and whether we are overall miserable or happy. 

I know some of you are list makers, or maybe an A, B, C, and D planner. I hate to burst your bubble but sometimes the list will not get finished, and all four plans may get booted.  Somewhere deep inside we have to find the faith and ability to say, “It is OK- there is a reason for this event. I will accept it, and not be upset.”  So something small does not halt the whole entire day.  (Please know that I am not even considering asking you to not make the list because after years of experience I know it is not possible.)  Others of us might be opposite from list makers and have our own issues. Maybe we are very people oriented and do things on the fly sometimes. We have to realize that not everyone enjoys being around people all the time, and not everyone operates on the fly or even appreciate it for that matter.  The point is that we are all different and if we keep those things in perspective things would go a lot smoother in life.  I am currently working on this little perspective endeavor everyday.  I probably ask myself now many times a day “Now does this really matter? Does it affect the big picture?”  Honestly 9 out of 10 times the answer is it will be annoying, but not disastrous or life changing.

Colossians 3:1-2 (New Living Translation)- Since you have been raised to new life with Christ, set your sights on the realities of heaven, where Christ sits in the place of honor at God’s right hand. Think about the things of heaven, not the things of earth.

Mathew 25:34 “Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. 35 For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, 36 I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’


When we focus on the needs of others we don’t have time to get stuck in selfishness, where is ultimately where we lose our perspective most of the time?  In selfishness we turn our eyes away from God and his plan, and toward and our selfish wants and desires. The bottom line is that if we put all our focus on God and where he is leading us, we won’t even have time to be upset about all the little things because his plans are so much bigger than ours!

             I recently took some time and went to the forest with my kids.  We all like to hike and explore what God has made.  We talked about lots of stuff while we were there..  I am a science major so of course I love to pour into my kids all kinds of little facts about nature.  Chad just thinks I am a big old nerd! 
            One of the things we talked about were the leaves on the trees, and why they changed color and eventually fell off.  A tree's roots, branches and twigs can endure freezing temperatures, but most leaves are not so tough. On a broadleaf tree -- say a maple or a birch -- the tender thin leaves, made up of cells filled with water sap, will freeze in winter. Any plant tissue unable to live through the winter must be sealed off and shed to ensure the tree's survival.  As sunlight decreases in autumn, the veins that carry sap into and out of a leaf gradually close. A layer of cells, called the separation layer, forms at the base of the leaf stem. When this layer is complete, the leaf is separated from the tissue that connected it to the branch, and it falls. http://dnr.wi.gov/org/caer/ce/eek/veg/trees/treestruecolor.htm
            I find this can be applied to our own life.  Sometimes God calls us to seal our self off from certain things that leave us wide open for Satan’s attack.  The tree seals itself off, even at the cost of loosing its leaves in order to survive.  However, many times we are not willing to risk a loss of any kind, so we hold on to the thing that is slowly destroying us.  I am reading a great book called gods at War by Kyle Idleman.  It is a great book on the gods that take over our life, and how sometimes we don’t even recognize it. 
     He quotes the Bible by saying, “As water reflects the face, so one’s life reflects the heart. Proverbs           27:19.  The heart is the truth of your identity, that’s why Satan fights to fiercely fill it.  Imagine this scenario.  You are on a hike and you find trash in the creek.  You can’t believe someone would dump trash in the creek, so you spend several hours before you begin to see some progress.  When you come back you find trash in the stream again.  In fact there is more trash than before, so you begin to follow the creek upstream.  Sure enough you find a garbage dump that has been there for years.  It is emptying into the creek.  Your cleaning job only allowed for more trash to flow downstream.  You could go and clean every day, but it would just be like pushing a boulder up the hill and watching it roll back down.  If you want your creek to be clean, that means going directly to the source and dealing with what’s there.  Think of your heart the way the Hebrews did, as the source from which your life flows-thoughts, emotions, actions.  How much of your life do you spend dealing with the visible garbage rather than what produces it?  We all spend countless time on trash removal when something upstream is still dumping into the flow.  Even the church focuses downstream too much.  It’s so much easier to pick up a little bit of trash.  Dealing with what’s upstream is a staggering commitment.   But the heart is where the battle is won. If you only work on the downstream it can be considered “behavior modification” and not fixing the true root of the problem.  So take a high upstream to the real heart of the problem."- Kyle Idleman

Just like the trees that loose their leaves in order to protect themselves; God has called us to cut things from our life to ultimately close the foothold for Satan.  Would we be willing to take the hike upstream and look at what is in our heart? Would we be wiling to seal off those things that are not part of God's will? Sometimes I think this can be a terrifying experience because we are not sure we will like what we find, but one that could change our life forever. “Search me, God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.” Psalm 139:23-24  T