Perspective Please...

"I was standing today in the dark toolshed. The sun was shining outside and through the crack at the top of the door there came a sunbeam. From where I stood that beam of light, with the specks of dust floating in it, was the most striking thing in the place. Everything else was almost pitch-black. I was seeing the beam, not seeing things by it. Then I moved, so that the beam fell on my eyes. Instantly the whole previous picture vanished, I saw no toolshed, and (above all) no beam. Instead I saw, framed in the irregular cranny at the top of the door, green leaves moving on the branches of a tree outside and beyond that, 90 odd million miles away, the sun. Looking along the beam, and looking at the beam are very different experiences." - CS Lewis

As I was reading this, I was first reminded by how, as a non-christian, I had looked at the beam of light (Christianity) and packaged away many assumptions of the so-called "lovesick" life, but actually had no idea what it would be to be IN the beam of light. I had mentally and verbally persecuted christians for living such a straight-jacketed life - a life style that didn't "enjoy" life." "It's too radical," I would say. "It's not balanced. It's not meant for me. It's too ridiculous." I was really an arrogant hater without any perspective before truly experiencing the love of God. But as God unveiled the truth and I moved closer to the beam of light until the beam fell on my eyes, my perspective of the world changed. I was no longer looking at the sunbeam, but looking along the beam. I realized the "balanced" life I had in mind was incredibly skewed, as I needed to know the whole picture before knowing where the middle lies. I only knew a little of what is "good behavior," so my balance was definitely leaning more towards the wrong side in the holistic picture. I started to receive revelations and amazing epiphanies as I started to experience His love. The key to this was humility - giving the benefit of the doubt that my perspective had been wrong my entire life.

"If he had never looked along pain he simply wouldn't know what he was looking at. The very subject for his inquiries from outside exists for him only because he has, at least once, been inside. This case is not likely to occur, because every man has felt pain. But it is perfectly easy to go on all your life giving explanations of relation, love, morality, honor, and the like without having been inside any of them. And if you do that, you are simply playing with counters. You go on explaining a thing without knowing what it is. That is why a great deal of contemporary thought is, strictly speaking, thought about nothing - all the apparatus of thought busily working in a vacuum." - CS Lewis

I was secondly reminded by how, even as a christian, I continued to look at the beam of light (Christianity) and judged others by the way they sang praise, fasted, prayed, and even questioned their kingdom mindset. When people sang praise "spiritually" I questioned their motive, as from my outside perspective, it seemed like people were doing too much that it looked fake. From looking at the beam, repetitively fasting and going out of my way for intercessory prayers didn't appear powerful. And it definitely sounded silly to desire the end times, as I felt the compassion in my heart to spread His love to as many as possible before His return. But as I moved closer to the beam of light until the beam fell on my eyes, my perspective of christianity began to change. I no longer feared man, as Jesus says (in Matthew 10:27-28), "What I tell you in the dark, speak in the daylight: what is whispered in your ear proclaim from the roofs. Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather, be afraid of the One who can destroy both soul and body in hell." When I worship, I close my eyes, so that the world and the eyes of man fade, and I am alone with God. When I started to fast and pray, not only did I begin to see His powerful movement, but also began to understand His will more clearly - as repetitive fasting stirred constant humility to die more to myself. When I dropped my prejudice thoughts of christian eschatology (study of the end times), my kingdom mindset was changed - as a carpenter needs to have a clear picture of the final product as he works to accomplish his goal (which should also be used as a motivation). I became more motivated to serve His kingdom and to partake in the great harvest of the Lord. I'm now working with a goal in mind and I believe I am getting closer to His heart. I wonder what other beams of lights I am looking at, instead of looking along it.

I pray that we start with no prejudice against either kind of looking. "We do not know in advance whether the lover or the psychologist is giving the more correct account of love, or whether both accounts are equally correct in different ways, or whether both are equally wrong. We just have to find out. But the period of brow-beating has got to end." - CS Lewis