Day 44 - Issue 22
Psalm 142:7 NLT
'Bring me out of prison so I can thank you. The godly will crowd around me, for you are good to me.'
The landscape of our lives can often obscure God from our line of sight. Caring for Katey often filled every emotional and psychological dimension of my life, so I was at a loss as to where and how to regroup around Jesus. In one sense I wanted to blame God for the natural disaster that had been visited upon us. Wasn’t God Lord of all, and hadn’t my embrace of the cross secured my freedom through Jesus’ resurrection and ascension? Angry and confused, I was lost in a terrain that took every skill I had to navigate a safe path.
Prisons are often created out of our own perspective. As we say when training mediators, “My perspective is neither the only nor the right one.” This often raises some questions, but a perspective is merely one way of looking at something. It may be the product of careful thought and analysis, but will most certainly not be the only perspective available. However, once I’ve settled on my perspective, then it becomes all but impossible to entertain any alternative viewpoint.
Only by making a journey of ascent and approaching God can we gain a fresh perspective, and then only if we choose to. I wallowed in the injustice of my circumstances born of self-pity for many months and years. Eventually I made that ascent, albeit slowly and over quite some considerable time. When I accepted God’s invitation to sit alongside him, my perspective changed. I could see God in Katey as she deteriorated, I could discern God at work in our lives. Then to accept it was a challenge for I had to change some of my own long-held views. Changing perspective involves a letting go. My circumstances were the same, my perspective had changed.
At the close of the day, compline invites me to gain God’s perspective on the prisons that are of my own making. It offers the jailer’s keys for my release where I am able to accept them.
QUESTION: Do you find it hard to shift your perspective on life? If so, why might that be?
PRAYER: Lord, give me eyes to see and ears to hear all that you are saying and doing.
