Livin on the edge

“If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. 3 If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast,[b] but do not have love, I gain nothing.”

-1 Corinthians 12:1-3

I’ve been thinking a lot about perspective these last couple of days. Yesterday especially. We all had woken up to an arctic like environment that, although we knew was coming, seemingly took everyone by surprise. Under normal circumstances I would have spent the day outside…..working, but instead today I was inside. Great right? Wrong. I was sitting in a hospital waiting room for nearly 14 hours while a family member was being operated on.

Perspective.

Given the choice, I’d sooner work in any condition than have someone I care for being operated on…..no offense to the hospital staff, they in fact did an excellent job! But I digress.

Let me take it a step further.

While sitting in that waiting room I was surrounded by strangers, each going through different situations. A mix of somber faces and elated looks. Early on things were pretty tense for us, and by the looks on the faces of several of the other families we were not alone. As I stared out the window, half noticing a maintenance worker cleaning something in the midst of an icy gale, I saw a man smiling as he wrestled an “It’s a girl!” balloon into a car. I couldn’t help but smile, getting the chance to see the hospital from his point of view. A short time later it was our time to smile as we heard from the surgeon that although they had some issues everything was good. The waiting room looked completely different to us than it had just a short time earlier. Meanwhile not twenty feet away by the sound of the sobbing someone got different news. Same room, same weather, looks completely different.

Perspective.

So that brings me to this morning. Around 4:30 this morning Kerri is driving me to the train station and “Livin on the edge” by Aerosmith comes on…..I just want to say I absolutely love when I hear God’s message in unlikely places…

“There’s somethin’ wrong with the world today

I don’t know what it is

Something’s wrong with our eyes

We’re seein’ things in a different way

And God knows it ain’t his

It sure ain’t no surprise”

Alright God I hear you…I guess I’m not done talking about this. I mean a couple of days ago I was talking about judging others without knowing what they were going through, but this is different. This is deeper. As I sit here thinking of everything that’s going on, not only in the world but within my own life as well, it kills me. What is happening? Sitting in that room yesterday it didn’t matter who you were….or what your perspective was….unlike what was going on outside those walls, people actually cared about the person next to them. Cared about what they were going through. Good or bad it mattered. And even though we saw that room from different view points, from different mindsets, we all cared. To me it seems like we having a love issue in our everyday lives. Have we become so self absorbed or blinded by superficial thoughts that we just refuse to see from any viewpoint or thought process other than our own? Sadly the answer is yes. Now before you say “we’ll not me” I want you to think about it…..Really think about it…..Maybe think a little more. I’m not saying it happens all the time, but that’s not how this works. Christ was pretty clear about this. In 1 Corinthians 13:13 he said “And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.” The GREATEST of these is love. Now I know what you’re thinking, it’s not that easy. I agree, but no one ever said anything about easy. Maybe now you’re thinking that I don’t understand what you’re dealing with or going through, and that’s absolutely true. But what I do know is that on Jesus’s last two days on earth alone he was betrayed by someone he considered a friend, denied by the man he saw his brother, beaten, mocked, tortured, and crucified…. and all he felt for them was love. Love and forgiveness. He still saw things from their perspective and with love in his heart.

“Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.”

-Luke 23:34

We forget sometimes,I think, that we are supposed to live in His image not the other way around. I’m not perfect. We’re not perfect. We are all works in progress, but we can’t think that if I “give love here I don’t have to give love there”. Steven Tyler is right, something is wrong and we definitely not seeing things God’s way. Well I don’t know about you but I’m tired of being a “clanging cymbal” I’m done with having and gaining “nothing”. The change has to start with each of us…today.

I pray you all find joy in all you do, all you see, and all you share. God bless.