Perception: A Whole New Depth

Step, step, step, trip.   It happens to me all of the time: I’ll be walking up the stairs on total autopilot, and BAM!  I fall, scraping my knee, my hand, and my pride.   Walking is something I’ve been doing since I was a foot and a half tall, so why is it that something I’ve had so much practice in can trip me up so often?   It’s a misjudgment of where I stand in relation to my visible surroundings. 

Recently, a friend of mine told me that the reason we have 2 eyes is to provide depth perception to our brains.  Being the trusting friend that I am, I quickly looked it up on the know-all, be-all: Wikipedia.  He was correct!  It is in fact the very thing that allows us to perceive three dimensions instead of just two, which is how we (as humans) judge depth.  Most people have probably learned this in high school biology, and who knows, maybe I did also, but the concept of it is very profound.  Two is better than one.

It never ceases to amaze me how creation sings the Lord’s praises from the perfect order of the smallest atom to the delicate orbit of the planets in space.  His creation can’t help but point to its creator.  When I find something like this out, that has His markings all over it, it’s like His signature gets written on my heart all over again.  Deep inside, you find some sort of connection with all of the other created things in Heaven and on earth, worshipping God.  Ahhh-but I have digressed. 

It is possible to perceive depth with just one eye.  You can see 2-dimensional objects and gauge how far they are using things like motion and calculation.  Just like we as humans can get through this life alone.  It is possible.  We can measure things by human logic and calculation and reason away all of the signs that point us to God.  But if you could see with two eyes, why wouldn’t you?  It’s so like God to come in and renew your vision; to make it easier for you.  He knows you need to be able to tell what’s coming and how to judge it and so he steps in and makes everything 3-dimensional, taking the guesswork out of it for you. 

He draws you close to Him to begin to show you the world in a way you never knew, you never knew.  With Him, things come alive, they take shape.   Reason, logic, calculation-they all fade when you see things as they really are.  If we aren’t careful, we will be one-eyed creatures, walking around using reason to explain why the world is flat.  We can see that it’s flat, it seems flat, nothing has ever told us that it can be anything other than flat.  But God.  He has a way of dumbfounding you with the smallest detail, rendering all of your theories absolutely mindless.  The world is clearly round.

This seems like a very solemn season in life for some reason.  The world has never been more sure of its 'flatness' in its entire history.  The Lord is requiring His people to step out of what we think we know and see things as they really are.  We need to stop walking around with a self-imposed handicap, like a hand over our eye.   No matter how scary what we see is, we are called to be the Body of Christ and be ahead of the world.  Things like hope and faith, things that the world can’t see, have to come from Him through us.  It’s our responsibility not to turn a blind eye….for their sakes.

I know that I will be seeking the Lord for areas that I have willingly overlooked, and I would encourage you to do the same.  Let the scales fall and ask the Lord to give you a 3-dimensional look at the 2-dimensional issues in your life and watch out, your perception may take on a whole new depth.

Hearing From God

“Step right up! Step right up! The person who can tell me what’s behind door #4 will win the chance to go into their own ministry and be awarded the title ‘Hearer of God’.”  This example may be a little ridiculous, but how many times does this sound like what people are looking for when they start ‘hearing from God’?  It’s sort of the unwritten rule when you first get saved, that you must hear from God on every, single, issue.  But who really does?

            Honestly, I think most people aren’t sure of the right decision before they make it, but that is unacceptable in our religious society, so we slap a ‘thus saith the Lord’ on our decision.  If for nothing else, it quiets the critics and eases our own mind. Except, the problem with that is, that not everything is actually spoken and ordained by the Lord.  So, if it isn’t, aren’t we setting ourselves up for failure?

There is a saying in our household that is referenced when one of us believes the other is exaggerating a story: “Check your RAS.”  Your Reticular Activating System (commonly known as RAS) is the part of your brain that you can ‘program’.  It is the functional part of the axiom, ‘mind over matter.’  If you say something long enough, eventually you’ll believe it, and if you believe something long enough, eventually you can’t help but act upon your beliefs.  The thing that makes your RAS so powerful is that it cannot distinguish between real events (the present) and fake ones (the memory).  When we tell a story and embellish certain areas, our RAS relives the entire situation and then stores the embellishment as memory, so that the next time we tell the story, the embellished version is our reality.  If you embellish a second time, that memory will be saved and the more you fib, the more and more the story goes askew.  I could go on and on about this, but the point I am trying to make is this: when you say that something is from God enough times but it really isn’t, pretty soon your RAS or more importantly your heart, will believe it. 

Life can get tricky when you start believing and acting on things that aren’t true.  It’s just a hop, skip, and step from disappointment, discouragement, and rejection.  We set ourselves up believing God has breathed life into our circumstances, only to be disappointed by the less-than-fabulous outcome.  Now, I’m not saying God can’t meet you where you’re at and turn situations around for you, but what I am saying is that it’s a longer road.  When we detour from what He has for us, we put distance between ourselves and the ‘prize.’

Maybe, just maybe, if we were more honest with ourselves from the beginning, we wouldn’t need to detour.  If we got a little more comfortable with the whole idea that we don’t have all of the answers and we don’t necessarily see the right decisions every time, we would have less confused, hurting people in the world.  An attitude of humility could really do wonders for us – go figure. 

It’s funny to me, well interesting rather, when people tell me God told them to do a certain thing and coincidentally that thing lines up perfectly with their own ambitions and goals.  I want to say, ‘well, your god seems to give you what you want when you want it – where do I sign up?’  You see, when the God that I serve speaks, He usually is telling me to do something uncomfortable, unfamiliar, and in spite of me, not because He’s cruel, but because He is trying to get me to grow and take steps out of my own mess. As humans, we are creatures of habit, even if our habits are causing us pain, misery, and heartache, we will stick with them because the fear of the unknown is too daunting.  God loves us too much to watch us sit in our own filth.  He wants to show us things and have us experience freedom on a level we hadn’t been able to before. That’s the God I serve…a good God.

No one has all of the answers. At best, we all see our own little glimpse of the picture.  That’s why we need each other, to fill in the blanks.  Here’s the good news: He will never leave us nor forsake us.  Trust that God will bring you direction that is clear and concise at the time you need it most.  Trust in Him that the right path will be made known and He will be there to walk it with you the entire time.