Today’s sermon was titled “Keeping Perspective.”\u00c2\u00a0 It was about exactly what I’ve been thinking so much about lately:\u00c2\u00a0 The big picture and the little picture.<\/p>\n
Of course it got me reflecting some more.\u00c2\u00a0 I think there will always be a tension between the big picture and the little picture.\u00c2\u00a0 We can believe that God is working, that God is surely working all things together for good.\u00c2\u00a0 But in the little picture, bad things do happen.\u00c2\u00a0 And they hurt.<\/p>\n
The Psalms are full of wrestling with this tension.\u00c2\u00a0 Here’s a common pattern to so many psalms:<\/p>\n
Help, Lord!<\/em><\/p>\n Things are awful!<\/em><\/p>\n Answer me quickly!<\/em><\/p>\n I remember that You came through for me before.<\/em><\/p>\n Surely You will come through for me again!<\/em><\/p>\n God rocks!<\/em><\/p>\n I’m going to conquer!<\/em><\/p>\n Isn’t God AWESOME?!?<\/em><\/p>\n Sometimes the way we get through our pain in the little picture is to cry out to God.\u00c2\u00a0 After we express our pain, we can remind ourselves that we KNOW God is going to come through for us.<\/p>\n Pastor Ed mentioned that the best way to keep perspective is not positive thinking, but faith.\u00c2\u00a0 Hebrews 11\u00c2\u00a0has so many models of faith.\u00c2\u00a0 Even though “they did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance.”<\/p>\n Maybe that’s the challenge:\u00c2\u00a0 Seeing what God is doing, and welcoming it, even from a distance.\u00c2\u00a0 Believing that God is Real, and that it is Worth It to follow Him, however foolish it may look in the short term\u00c2\u00a0 (Hebrews 11:6).<\/p>\n Imagine that you’ve bought your child something they’ve been longing for.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s wrapped up and hidden away for his birthday, or maybe sitting under the Christmas tree.\u00c2\u00a0 Then you go to a store together and see one, and he dissolves into tears because you won’t buy it.\u00c2\u00a0 You would be sad with your son because of his pain, but you would know he’ll get a lot more joy if he waits for Christmas.<\/p>\n Last year, God gave me some verses in Jeremiah 31, beginning with:\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n “Restrain your voice from weeping<\/em><\/p>\n and your eyes from tears,<\/em><\/p>\n for your work will be rewarded,”<\/em><\/p>\n declares the Lord.<\/em><\/p>\n “They will return from the land of the enemy.<\/em><\/p>\n So there is hope for your future,” <\/em><\/p>\n declares the Lord.<\/em><\/p>\n “Your children will return to their own land.”<\/em><\/p>\n Now here God is telling us to stop crying, but I know from other passages that He does have compassion for our pain!\u00c2\u00a0 So he’s not the Mean Dad snapping, “Stop crying!” but the one saying, “There, there!\u00c2\u00a0 Don’t worry, Honey, I have this problem totally under control.\u00c2\u00a0 Everything’s going to be Okay.\u00c2\u00a0 Better, everything’s going to be Beautiful.”<\/p>\n If we can truly believe the big picture, even our emotions can start to reflect that.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0Mind you, getting them there may take a wrestling process such as in the Psalms.\u00c2\u00a0 But that Big Picture thinking can help us refrain from crying as we come more fully to believe that, truly, God “exists, and He rewards those who earnestly seek Him.”\u00c2\u00a0 It is worth it to follow God.<\/p>\n I’ve also been thinking lately that I can use my love for fairy tales to reinforce my big picture thinking.\u00c2\u00a0 Today Pastor Ed said that as Christians, “We believe in Happy Endings.”\u00c2\u00a0 How true.\u00c2\u00a0 If we follow God, we can be certain that, whatever happens, the ending will be, “And they lived happily ever after.”<\/p>\n Isn’t God AWESOME?!?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Today’s sermon was titled “Keeping Perspective.”\u00c2\u00a0 It was about exactly what I’ve been thinking so much about lately:\u00c2\u00a0 The big picture and the little picture. Of course it got me reflecting some more.\u00c2\u00a0 I think there will always be a tension between the big picture and the little picture.\u00c2\u00a0 We can believe that God is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-121","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-devotional-thoughts","category-sundays-sermon"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderjourneys\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/121","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderjourneys\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderjourneys\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderjourneys\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderjourneys\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=121"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderjourneys\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/121\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderjourneys\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=121"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderjourneys\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=121"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderjourneys\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=121"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}