It is hard to imagine being three feet tall, but many years ago, I was half my size. I used to stand on my tiptoes and strain to reach inside the top drawers of my clothes dresser, groping blindly with my short little arms to feel around in the dark corners for my belongings. I specifically remember the day when I realized I could see the dust on the top of my dresser without assistance. I thought I had been cleaning everything, but I missed a few spots. Even today, I clean the top of the refrigerator myself, because I’m the only one in the house who has the perspective to see when it needs cleaning.
There are some perspectives that I don’t think I will ever grow to visualize, at least with my earthly vision. In the “love” chapter of the Bible, the writer says “When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways.” (ESV 1 Corinthians 13:11). Like a child on our tiptoes, groping in the dark, we are expected to have a limited perspective. Maybe this is why we still have difficulty seeing the way God sees. We are looking at life from our perspective and not His.
The front door of our home has a glass that is difficult to see through. I can see movement through the glass, but the prism effect of the light passing through often confuses my senses. Sometimes I “see” a car in the driveway, but it is just a car driving by. Sometimes I “see” someone on my front lawn, but it turns out to be a couple of leaves falling from the trees. God’s Word continues where it left off with a similar picture of perspective: “For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.” (ESV 1 Corinthians 13:12). The picture being drawn uses the fuzzy image of our own face, as seen in a piece of the best polished glass of the day – 2000 years ago – and comparing it to the clarity of seeing the flesh of a real person face to face. The perspective of our earthly knowledge is only giving us a fuzzy image, like that of an inexperienced child, but in the future “I shall know fully.” The writer is trying to get us to see life through the eyes and maturity of the knower of all things, who stands on the other side of the blurry prism glass called time. We also need to know that we cannot know all things.
When we ask questions like “why does God let people go to hell?” or “why does God allow suffering in the world?” we are seeing things from the wrong side of the glass. We live our lives as a child with selfish and pleasure seeking minds, wondering “how could God do this to me?” Questions like these do not have significance when we understand who God is. We need to stand up on a stool and look down on the dust, which is our life.
I know a number of people who claim that they do not need God. I don’t think they ever considered that God does not need us. Why would an omnipresent, omniscient, omnipotent being want anything to do with us? He is perfect and demands perfection. Human kind has made a mess of His creation and then turned their backs on the Creator for letting their sin happen. Why would God still want us?
He loves us.
Like a teenager who curses at their parents, we get angry at God for the life we are dealt. And like a rebellious teenager, we dishonor and deny our creator, even though He is the one who gave and sustains our life. But like a parent who never quits loving their child, God came to earth himself, as the Christ, to show us the truth of His love. He stepped out of infinity into our finite world to tell us what is on the other side of that fuzzy glass.
Yes, God does not need us. This is why our perspective needs to change to HIM and not US; pleasing HIM and not seeking our own pleasures; being SELFLESS instead of SELFISH. Do you see? God did not have to come to earth and be nailed to a cross. He did it so that we could be with Him. We always picture it the other way around – that the message of the cross is all about us, when in fact, the message of the cross is all about God.
Pastor Jay Merritt
There are some perspectives that I don’t think I will ever grow to visualize, at least with my earthly vision. In the “love” chapter of the Bible, the writer says “When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways.” (ESV 1 Corinthians 13:11). Like a child on our tiptoes, groping in the dark, we are expected to have a limited perspective. Maybe this is why we still have difficulty seeing the way God sees. We are looking at life from our perspective and not His.
The front door of our home has a glass that is difficult to see through. I can see movement through the glass, but the prism effect of the light passing through often confuses my senses. Sometimes I “see” a car in the driveway, but it is just a car driving by. Sometimes I “see” someone on my front lawn, but it turns out to be a couple of leaves falling from the trees. God’s Word continues where it left off with a similar picture of perspective: “For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.” (ESV 1 Corinthians 13:12). The picture being drawn uses the fuzzy image of our own face, as seen in a piece of the best polished glass of the day – 2000 years ago – and comparing it to the clarity of seeing the flesh of a real person face to face. The perspective of our earthly knowledge is only giving us a fuzzy image, like that of an inexperienced child, but in the future “I shall know fully.” The writer is trying to get us to see life through the eyes and maturity of the knower of all things, who stands on the other side of the blurry prism glass called time. We also need to know that we cannot know all things.
When we ask questions like “why does God let people go to hell?” or “why does God allow suffering in the world?” we are seeing things from the wrong side of the glass. We live our lives as a child with selfish and pleasure seeking minds, wondering “how could God do this to me?” Questions like these do not have significance when we understand who God is. We need to stand up on a stool and look down on the dust, which is our life.
I know a number of people who claim that they do not need God. I don’t think they ever considered that God does not need us. Why would an omnipresent, omniscient, omnipotent being want anything to do with us? He is perfect and demands perfection. Human kind has made a mess of His creation and then turned their backs on the Creator for letting their sin happen. Why would God still want us?
He loves us.
Like a teenager who curses at their parents, we get angry at God for the life we are dealt. And like a rebellious teenager, we dishonor and deny our creator, even though He is the one who gave and sustains our life. But like a parent who never quits loving their child, God came to earth himself, as the Christ, to show us the truth of His love. He stepped out of infinity into our finite world to tell us what is on the other side of that fuzzy glass.
Yes, God does not need us. This is why our perspective needs to change to HIM and not US; pleasing HIM and not seeking our own pleasures; being SELFLESS instead of SELFISH. Do you see? God did not have to come to earth and be nailed to a cross. He did it so that we could be with Him. We always picture it the other way around – that the message of the cross is all about us, when in fact, the message of the cross is all about God.
Pastor Jay Merritt
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