Join us this Sunday! In-Person 9:00am & 10:45am, Online 9:00am, 10:45am & 5:00pm

Join us this Sunday! In-Person 9:00am & 10:45am, Online 9:00am, 10:45am & 5:00pm

Join us at the next Sunday worship service:
In-Person
9:00am & 10:45am,
Online 9:00am, 10:45am & 5:00pm

Sometimes It Is All About Perspective

“He knows about everyone, everywhere. Everything about us is bare and wide open to the all-seeing eyes of our living God; nothing can be hidden from him to whom we must explain all that we have done.” – Hebrews 4:13 (TLB) .

Google earth is too cool. It lets you fly anywhere on Earth to view satellite imagery, maps, terrain, 3D buildings, even the canyons of the ocean. Basically you can go anywhere in the world and zoom in to see what you want to see in great detail.   

Using Google Earth enables you to view the places you have lived and to relive long-forgotten memories of your childhood up to today. Through Google Earth, I can instantly gain a different perspective and scale of my world, even to the point of seeing earth suspended in space. You can zoom in and you can zoom out. That digital ability reminds me in a small, limited way about God’s perspective. Google Earth is a reminder that God sees the big picture with me right in it. He sees my life intertwined with other lives, events and timelines.

That perspective comes in handy when we pray. When we pray, take a few moments and “zoom out” of your life, to try and see the profound perspective that God has. The Bible emphatically confirms that God listens to us: “But God did listen! He paid attention to my prayer. Praise God, who did not ignore my prayer or withdraw his unfailing love from me.” (Psalms 66:19-20). When we don’t get the answer to prayer that we are looking for, do we really consider how God views our prayers from a much larger perspective?

Sometimes we can forget the big picture and use prayer as a springboard for my “fix-it” list. Or we stuff a “suggestion box” to God outlining the ways He could go about improving His performance. Try to see God’s perspective when you pray. Thank Him for all He has done in our lives. Ask Him to show His mission and His will for our lives. Our prayers can become much more meaningful and powerful if we can manage perspectives of a big picture along with our own circumstances. As I pray, it is helpful to me to spiritually “zoom in and out” in my mind’s eye to better appreciate true reality of what God sees and what He can do.

In our prayers, let’s always remember that God has a perspective that is far, far bigger than ours towards all life and things. He sees all. As humans, we have a limited view.

It is also important to remember that in the big picture, God’s timeline is often way different from ours. Read what God declares in Isaiah 46:10: “Only I can tell you the future before it even happens. Everything I plan will come to pass for I do whatever I wish.’”

Discussion questions

  1. How does God’s perspective change the way we pray? 
  2. What can we do this week to have the bigger picture when we pray? 

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