It’s All About Perspective

27 Apr

“Despite the forecast, live like it’s spring.”  ~ Lily Pulitzer

I am going to feel like a hypocrite the entire time I type today’s reflection because everyone knows that I often live forecast to forecast.  When my sinuses or arthritis are bothering me, I look to see what the day and the next day will bring and I generally see the worst.  When our annual festival nears, I always fret over the forecast.  If it calls for four and a half days of sunshine, all I see is the half day of rain and I worry that the forecast will change and every day will have rain.

Our lives truly are all about perspective.  If we focus on the negative, that is all that we will be able to see and we will feel ourselves being brought low.  If, on the other hand, we focus on the positive that is coming, that perspective will help us to go through the time that is not so good.

In the midst of a global pandemic, I see so many people allowing the virus to wear them down.  They do not see hope.  All they see are restrictions.  They see opportunities, particularly travel, being lost, and they are having a hard time thinking positively.  But, as they so often say, “this too shall pass.”

What do you want to do when the pandemic is over?  Make plans.  Have something that you can look forward to doing.  We will be up and about again some day in the future.  We will be doing things again.  We will be moving about.  We will have the opportunity to travel.  So plan accordingly.

It is the same in our spiritual lives.  We might let the darkness of sin cloud our minds and prevent us from seeing opportunity and hope.  Do not allow yourself to live in the gloom of sin.  Rather, remember that there is something that awaits us all and that is the glory of the resurrection won for us by Christ Jesus, our Lord.  Do not be downcast.  Rather, raise your eyes to the Lord and live in His hope!

The way we live our lives here on this earth depend, largely, upon the perspective we employ to view ourselves and all that goes on around us.  View life through the Lord rather than through the prism of a darkened world.

FAITH ACTION:  Do not live in dread this day.  Instead, keep your eyes fixed on the Lord and hope for the best that only He can provide.