Perspective – amelia catherine
I was sitting next to my brother on a plane from Chicago headed home to Philadelphia. We had taken off in the middle of bad weather so the sky was gray. There was freezing rain, so during boarding machines were spraying the wings with some sort of anti-freeze liquid. As the plane was still climbing, we experienced a lot of turbulence, I kept having that feeling where you know the plane just dropped 100 feet in the sky, and I was hearing loud sounds that would come and go which made me think the engines weren’t working quite right. Immediately, I got nervous and just started praying and trying to calm down while also not showing any fear to my brother. But in the middle of being focused on the scary situation and the fear it was causing within me, my head turned and looked out the window. I truly think the Holy Spirit took my head and turned it because what I saw out the window in that moment was the most beautiful stillness of the of the sky. It was an exact picture of peace. In that moment, I heard God say, “Sometimes you have to pass through the storm of all the pain and hard stuff to get to the beauty and peace and goodness. Don’t be discouraged, the good is coming.”
It can be so easy to focus on our situations and our feelings, both good and bad. Though our feelings are valid, they aren’t final and they are often not truth. “The heart is deceitful above all things” (Jeremiah 17:9); therefore, it cannot be the compass by which we live out our lives and make decisions. Feelings come and go and have the tendency to blind us or keep our eyes fixated on what is right in front of us. God knows that – how powerful our emotions can be. He also knows how scary life can be. “Do not be afraid” is the most recorded command in the Bible. Fear of the unknown. Fear of the outcome of the situation you are in. Fear that God has forgotten about you and won’t provide. The world is full of troubles that instigate these fears within us. John 16:33 says, “I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.” So how are we to “take heart” and hope when our eyes can’t see the goodness or the fulfillment of the promise in the middle of the troubles and fears? Romans 8:24 says, “But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what they already have?” In that verse we hear God telling us that our earthly eyes will never be able to see what we are hoping for. But I would argue that we can gain access to a vision of this hope through changing our perspective.
Scripture commands us to fix our eyes on Jesus (Hebrews 12:2), but I believe we can do more than that. I believe we can elevate our hearts and our minds through the reading of God’s Word, prayer, worship, and community so that our eyes are elevated as well, and they can have the perspective that Jesus has, seeing more than just our current circumstances. Though doing this won’t provide knowledge of the details about how things will work out, when our hearts and minds are elevated close to Him we can spiritually see that He is with us in our situations and working behind the scenes to make everything out for our good. We can even see His blessings and grace in the midst of our troubles. With our earthly eyes, we can’t see the future we desire and the One in which we hope. But, through a new perspective, one that is only attained when sitting before the throne of Jesus, elevated beyond this earthly realm, we can see that the promises still stand and God is good, even when our circumstances are not.
Here is the picture I took from the plane…the stillness and peace at a higher elevation than the storm.
