A Matter of Perception

One, seeming to be a traveller, came to me and said, "What is the shortest journey from one place to the same place?"

The sun was behind his head so that his face was illegible.

"Surely," I said, "to stand still."

"That is no journey at all," he replied. "The shortest journey from one place to another is round the world."

These are the opening lines to Chesterton's fable Homesick at Home. This is a fascinating dispute as to point of view. Sometimes our points of view are more on the lines of a "no journey at all." We like to keep it simple. We want the righteousness of the cross without the cost of the cross. We want Christianity without commitment. We want to be viewed as good people in church on Sundays and yet we adopt a worldview for everything else throughout the rest of the week.

Joshua, Caleb, and ten other men snuck into Canaan. They all saw the same exact things, yet they all saw them from different points of view. Their perception was different. Ten of them saw giants so big they were undefeatable. Two of them saw giants so big they were impossible to miss. Such was the case with David as well. He saw a giant, but he saw a giant in God, not in Goliath. Jesus saw children where the others only saw a nuisance. In each and every instance the point of view defined the moment. Our perception widens once we see through the eyes of Christ. That is when we sense the most compassion, particularly for the lost. Our perception also widens when we look to Christ. It is then that we realize we can overcome. We can overcome the evil around us, after all, He is on our side. More importantly though, we can also overcome the evil within us. You know, that nagging voice that tears us down for our faults. That voice that demands punishment of us for our many faults. Look to Jesus, He's all we need.