Editor's thoughts: November 2010

During my freshman year of high school, I took an art class. While I still have some of the “art” I created, I honestly don’t remember a lot about the class. The one lesson that has stuck with me, though, is the series of classes that focused on the concept of perspective. We drew and drew—the same objects, the same landscapes, again and again—from various perspectives. I had to learn to look at things from a different point of view and attempt to draw them from each new and different perspective.

It’s interesting that it would be the classes on perspective that I remember most vividly from high school art class. That’s because while I don’t draw much anymore, I still struggle with perspective. When life’s storms blow through my world, I often find myself wondering why this painful experience had to happen to me. I’m the queen of blowing things completely out of proportion. When a work day is frustrating or I don’t get my way or things don’t go exactly as I thought they would, I’m quick to think—and sometimes say—that life couldn’t possibly get any worse.

A lot of the time, my perspective on life revolves solely around me—how this affects me, how I feel, how I’m being mistreated. As I’ve matured in my faith, I’ve had to learn to listen to the Holy Spirit when I feel my emotions and my me-centered perspective start to spin out-of-control. Because what I learn when I listen and search Scripture is that my God can use the painful experiences of my life to display His glory. That maybe I’m walking through this experience now so that later I can help someone else. That it’s not all about me. Every once in awhile, I’m able to look at the so-called chaos in my life and see it from God’s vantage point. In those moments, I see how He is loving me through this all and how He’s using this experience to teach me, conform me, and bless others. I begin to recognize how He is at work in every part of the situation I thought was the worst thing ever.

It wouldn’t hurt me—or you—to seek to see life from God’s perspective a little more often. That’s the point of David Crim’s cover story on page 26—and in a way, this issue of ec. When we see ourselves from God’s point of view, it changes how we think about our lives and our purpose, as you’ll see when you read Will Snipes’ story on page 46. God’s perspective is so much bigger than ours that He can even use our grief and pain to reveal His glory and achieve His purposes, as Matt Papa discusses in an exclusive Q&A with ec (p. 56).

Don’t miss this: God is at work in every part of your life and He’s calling every believer to live an uncommon life, empowered by hope and strength that only He can give. It’s time to see your life from His perspective.