From a Certain Point of View
Keeping your eyes open
The only people who see the whole picture are the ones who step outside the frame.
Salman Rushdie
So what I told you was true. From a certain point of view.
You’re going to find that many of the truths we cling to depend greatly on our own point of view.
Obi-Wan Kenobi
Can we ever see the whole picture at once? Mere mortals, constructed of dust and desire, cannot see what the omniscient God can—unless He shows us.
Prophets. Seers. Those who can hear the Still Small Voice, see auras and angels, feel the internal burning of God's presence. There are moments when physical limitations shift and allow humans to see what butterflies can see, hear what dogs can hear, sense what orcas can sense, know what God knows.
Have you seen a rainbow? Are you sure?
Seen from below, a rainbow tells only half the story. Seen from above?
(Explain this science, please.)
The rainbow isn't just pretty—it's a sparkling promise we can only fully realize from God's vantage point.
It fascinates me that our Creator, who knows the whole story (He wrote it, after all), deliberately placed us in a position to know only part of it. Without Him, we journey handicapped.
And we only need Him if we decide we do.
Vision is a choice
Spiritual vision — elevating our thoughts to consider and include God’s point of view — is a choice He allows us.
We can be born, live, and die having experienced the bare minimum of existence without ever acknowledging God exists, and He's okay with that. As a parent with a child who did likewise, I can only comment that the parent has no choice but to figure out a way to live with that level of pain. So I doubt God is "okay" with that choice as much as He exists with nonstop heartbreak, longing, and patience.
Until my adult child decided he needed me, my only option was to wait. And keep loving. And hoping. But I had to make peace with the idea I might never see or hear from him again. I could not make that choice for him.
I set my pain into God’s capable and totally understanding hands.
“I get it,” He said. “And I got this. Stand by.”
From God’s point of view, the human heart is readable. He knows things about my son that not even my son knows. God has the whole picture. He sees the whole rainbow.
I chose to trust in His vision.
Meanwhile,
Matthew 6:21
For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
This verse was in yesterday's readings. Basic? Only until it occurred to me that my valuables include family, home, health—the list went on and on.
Did I have to choose? I mean. We’re supposed to love our kids. The stab of trepidation lasted until the next verse.
“The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are healthy, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eyes are unhealthy, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness!” vs 22-23
If it was as simple as choosing between two masters, why insert this verse?
We are squarely in the conversation about having eyes to see and ears to hear.
Jesus held up a half-rainbow and invited us to see the rest of it. He did this all the time. “What do you see?” he asks. “What do you hear?”
Our good shepherd guides us over rocky ground, under shadows, through places we never intended to go in order to show us other points of view. We cannot see what He needs us to see until we stand somewhere else and look from there
He invites us to step outside of the frame.
To pay attention.
It’s not about being able. It’s about being willing.
History is full of people who chose their limited view over God's complete perspective.
Come with me to 1 Kings 22 where Jehoshaphat wants Ahab to ask God’s advice on a war campaign. Ahab trots out 400 prophets (because more is more) who all concur that victory is nigh.
Jehoshaphat says, “If it’s all the same to you, my good man, these are prophets of Baal. And I asked for, you know, the God of Israel’s prophet. Yahweh. Surely you’ve heard of him?”
Ahab answers, “Yeah, about that one. We’re not really fans. I keep one of His prophets in a cage but he’s barking mad. Why bother?”
You know the story. A quick shout out to Micaiah, the snarky and in-your-face prophet. And to Ahab who couldn’t/wouldn’t/shouldn’t dare send for Elijah.
But the point is, Ahab refuses to hear the truth and rides to his death in battle because choices, and God lets him.
Ahab is a guy who wants what he wants when he wants it. So. He gets it. I reckon we get the Still Small Voice in our head more times than we’d prefer to admit. Ahab rejected the revelation because it didn’t match his desired view.
Are we paying attention?
Trusting God's complete vision when ours is partial
What enables some to see beyond their frame while others remain firmly within it?
My final connection comes from a Bible class last week on the ten virgins. Half wise, half foolish, and it was all around oil for their lamps. Or was it?
I think the parable wasn’t about the oil, but how the ladies saw the situation and the posture they took from that visual.
Did they see a finite resource or an infinite one? The oil? Or the master?
What became more important? Running around panicked because they felt deeply inadequate? Or trusting Him enough enter the banquet anyway?
Might the master have the whole picture? And might He be so delighted with His banquet that He hands out complete forgiveness to those who come trembling into the hall? The master sees the internal—where the oil resides.
And though it be small as a grain of mustard seed, it will be enough.
And while we are all invited, we can’t make the choice for anyone but ourselves.
It seems the virgins were foolish because they demanded certainty. They did not have a proper vision of their master, which he confirms later that night.
“Therefore keep watch,” Jesus ends. “Because you do not know the day or the hour.”
Again, the discussion is about vision. Not timing or oil.
The eye is the lamp of the body. Then what does it see, what does it take in, that generates light? So much light that others can see by it? What is this oil?
A vision. Spiritual insight. The whole rainbow.
The oil that keeps our lamps burning isn't something we earn or store up—it's our continued choice to trust God's complete vision even when ours is partial.
Healthy eyes are willing to see beyond limited frames.
Our heart follows after what we truly value. Is it our limited perspective? Or God’s complete one? And what treasure do you think is actually yours to lose? My son was never mine. Not even my breath belongs to me. What did I think I had to run out and collect to feel “adequate”?
Over what do I actually have control?
Choices.
Choose to go with Him into the banquet. Choose to listen to His answers when you ask your questions. Choose to believe in the whole rainbow, and step out of your frame to find it.
Go with God, my friends.