You Choose the View

         Last Sunday I pulled a muscle while leading worship. Remember how I said my life was ironic? I couldn’t pull a bicep while playing baseball or by saving a baby from the jaws of a vicious dog….Ohhh nooo! I had to pull a neck muscle while hitting a high f! I’m pretty sure no one is going to give me a medal of valor for that one…Hah!

     Anyway, this series of posts has been dogging me for about two weeks and I haven’t known how to start it. I guess this is as good a beginning to my story as any.

     My head hasn’t let me forget my sissy wound since that service. On Tuesday after two Tylenol and an 800 milligram Motrin failed to calm my complaining grey matter I decided it was time to try taking a nap.

     As I laid my aching head on the pillow in my room a heavy rain began to fall outside my window.

     God asked, “What do you see?”

     “Rain.” I said.

     “You choose the view.” He continued.

      As I look at this picture, I am amazed that I did not see the trees that sloped so gracefully skyward or the elegant curve of the red-tiled roof outside my daughter’s window. I saw only the rain, the one thing my camera didn’t really pick up as I look at it now.

     Life-change is sort of like rain. It draws our attention. It would have us focus all our energy on itself to the extent that we lose our view of everything else that is going on in the background. If we focus on it too much life-change can bring us down. 

     Change itself is always unsettling because it steals our rhythm. It makes us feel uncertain and afraid of what lies ahead. Yet God is always working behind the change. If we can just look through the heavy mists we will see a world of blessing that is being washed and nourished by the very thing that is making us so nervous.

    Changing your view doesn’t make change less difficult. It just helps you to see that the difficulty has a purpose…a reason. It’s not all for nothing! God has a plan.

    In the next few days we will be talking about how change effects attitude, commitment, goals, relationship, and health. It’s not set in stone. Remember you choose the view!