Fresh, Clear, Well-Seasoned Perspective

Can you suggest a good wine to go with that?

Perspective is a funny thing. It never comes when you need it most, that's for sure. The dictionary defines "perspetive" as "one's point of view." I don't know that I necessarily agree with that. Or maybe I do... stay with me, folks. This is a bumpy one...

A wise man once said that opinions are like butts. Everybody has one and they all stink. Hmmm... an outrageous metaphor, but so true. Most of us spend our entire lives trying to develop our own system of beliefs... our own opinions... our unique perspective, if you will. We follow politics and try to form some opinion of what's right and wrong with our government. We join sororities and fraternities and civic clubs to form opinions about the programs and causes that are most important. We choose our friends based on who most thinks like us. We cheer for a certain sports team because that's who mom or dad or husband or wife cheers for. We deal with trials and tribulations, successes and failures, based on friends we know who have already been there and done that. But how many of us are really forming a unique perspective?

Fresh, clear, well-seasoned perspective.

I would venture to go so far as to say that none of us have a unique perspective. I don't think that any human ever has. Our beliefs and opinions... our perspective... is so often formed by people we perceive to be wiser or smarter or more popular than we are. But perception is a great deceiver... sometimes our perception is spot-on, and sometimes it couldn't be father from the truth. And anything that unreliable shouldn't be wholly trusted.

I will even go even further to say that we as humans are almost totally incapable of forming a unique perspective. Everything we believe or don't believe is based on the beliefs or the un-beliefs of something or someone before us. Please don't misunderstand me... I don't mean to sound like all humans are merely mindless lemmings, incapable of personal thought development or of gaining wisdom through personal experience. I only mean to say that we tend to base what we believe on something other than ourselves.

So, now I make my hypthesis... my geometry-inspired "If-Then Statement" (Mrs. Tanner would be so proud...)... IF we as humans are incapable of forming our own unique opinions and perspective... and IF we draw our opinions from others... THEN it should stand to reason that we should adopt the opinions and perspective of someone or something COMPLETELY INFALLABLE.

And there's the rub. No matter how wise or experienced or popular someone may be, their mistakes are all just as costly as ours. It's insanity, really, the amount of trust we put in people that we perceive to be better than us in some way. There's only one human who has ever been or ever will be on earth who is completely infallable. Only one has never made a mistake or a bad choice or a hasty decision. Only one is infinitely wise, infinitely good, infinitely experienced, and infinitely popular... and yet we put our trust in so many other than the One.

I spent lots of time conforming my opinions to the opinions of others that I felt could advance me somehow. I picked a political party. I joined a social club or two. I went to a popular college. I listened to music that made me fit in with one group or another. I went to church and then I didn't. I dated a certain guy while not even considering another. And I did all of this... I formed my entire existence around what others thought or said or believed. And for years I felt that, somehow, I didn't quite belong anywhere.

And that's when He said, "Blair, don't you get it? You belong with me."

And it was life-altering. Not so much because I made new friends or chose a different career or dropped out of my clubs. It was life-altering because I can now form my beliefs and my opinions... my perspective... out of the perspective of the One who is infinitely wiser than I could ever dream. Jesus warns me so many times in the Bible to not be deceived by my own perspective...

Every brother is a deceiver and every friend a slanderer... Jeremiah 9:5
The pride of your heart has deceived you... Obadiah 1:2
Watch out that no one deceives you... Matthew 24:4
If anyone thinks he is something when he is nothing, he deceives himself... Galatians 6:3
Let no one deceive you with empty words... Ephesians 5:6
I tell you this so that no one may deceive you with a good argument... Colossians 2:4
Don't be deceived... James 1:16

And on and on it goes. Don't be deceived by what others are saying. Don't blindly accept someone's opinion as fact. Don't do something just because someone you love is doing it. You are His beloved, called by His name. Don't worry. He has a plan that was made just for you. Adopt His perspective as your own. Don't be afraid to seem unimportant in the eyes of people. Choose instead to be famous in the secret audience of the One who sees and understands it all.

Lord, it's with an honest reverence
That I come into Your presence,
Whispering the Name that calms all fear.
And I'm filled with such emotion
At Your mercy and devotion -
To think that You would come
And meet me here.

Lord, I tremble
At the very thought of Calvary
Where You chose me over life
And You suffered willingly.
Lord, I tremble
At the way I'm undeserving
Of the love You came to give
And Your blood that makes me worthy.
Lord, I tremble.