What's Driving Our Perspectives?

Someone’s perspective about a situation will usually drive how he or she responds to that situation. For example, when I was in junior high, I thought I was going to play professional basketball. That was my perspective of how good I was (oh, how naive). So that perspective led me to practice basketball a lot and watch different YouTube videos about increasing my skills. So, while I thought I would be the next Michael Jordan or Lebron James, my dad kindly came to me and told me something that completely shifted my perspective on basketball: I should keep playing and enjoying basketball but shouldn’t plan to be in the NBA. As a junior high kid with massive dreams, I felt crushed. But the more I looked into what it took to be in the NBA, I knew my dad was right. The truth that I wouldn’t make it into the NBA shifted my perspective on why I should keep playing the sport, and that’s the important idea - the truth rightly changes our perspectives.

In ways far more significant than going pro in basketball, God comes to the ancient Israelites to offer them His perspective so that they can start living in the truth. We find it in Exodus 6. The issue is that the Israelites are enslaved by the Egyptians. To make matters worse, the Egyptians care so little for the Israelites that, in the past, they had Israeli boys murdered (Exodus 1:22) and demanded for these Israeli slaves to keep up with production of bricks while holding back the necessary ingredients to make them (Exodus 5:9-16). To the Israelites, their perspective on freedom and deliverance looked really grim, so they cried out to God for help (Exodus 6:1-6).

In response to their cries, God lays out the truth to change the Israelites’ perspective of their situation. He says that He will use their situation to deepen and grow the relationship between Him and them. He says, “And I will take you to me for a people, and I will be to you a God, and ye shall know that I am the LORD your God, which bringeth you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians” (Exodus 6:7). The Hebrews thought that they had little to no hope because of their enslavement - that was their perspective. But God confronts their hopelessness with the fact that He will deliver them as their personal God and will judge the Egyptians in the process. In other words, God is using the truth to confront and change the Israelites’ perspective of their situation. They should not be hopeless but hopeful. They should not be faithless but faithful. They should not be trustless but trustful. Why? Because their faithful God will deliver them.

Friend, what do we think of our situations? Who or what are we letting drive our perspective of our circumstances? Are we letting our feelings ultimately determine what we think? Are we letting someone else’s opinion guide our thoughts? Are we running to Scripture for God’s truth to lead us? More specifically, are we living in light of the Gospel of Christ and the truth that He has redeemed us from the slavery of sin to live in right relationship with Him? Are we living in the full assurance that God is present with us, guiding us, leading us, and loving us even during the most trying and disappointing of situations? Let’s step back and let God and the truth face our situations head on, for it is then we start living in the right perspective. 

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