It's all about perspective!

8:08:00 AM

(From Plug In 02/07/17)

Good evening everyone! Today unlike other Plug In meetings, we thought of having something different. We are going to have a small little activity after which I will be giving a summary towards the end of it all.

So as you all are seated in groups, each of you will be handed a blank sheet of paper and a pen. We want you to write what you think about this one word that we are going to put up on the screen. You could write anything about the word. There’s no right or wrong to it. Just write down what you think about the word. We will give you 3 minutes to do so.

Here’s the word: RELATIONSHIPS

Your time starts now.
Now that you have written what you think, here’s what we are going to do. We want you to discuss within your teams about the things that you’ve written down and at the end of 5 minutes, we want you to summarize the whole thing and we want your team leader to come forward and speak about what you’ve discussed in regard to the same topic.

So what did you guys think about it?
I am kind of hoping that all of you learnt and were reminded of a few things you already knew about relationships today!


Now, what I am going to do is not give another summary to all of what was already spoken. But what I want to do for the next 10 minutes or so is to draw your attention to something else that all of you were working on right throughout this whole activity! It’s another word and that is what I want to talk about. The word is ‘perspective’ 

When each of you was asked to write about relationships, each of you wrote based on your own perspective about what you thought about relationships. When you were discussing with each other you got to learn about each other’s perspective on the same topic and when we had the leaders come up and share here you got a wider perspective on the same topic. You see, as we kept expanding the perspective about the same topic, we got to learn a lot more than what we already knew about this one topic. You see it’s all about one’s perspective!

How many of you can see two women in this picture?


You see, there are two women in one picture. It's all about perspective!

Let me share this story with you that I read recently.
Once there was a young couple who moved into a new neighborhood; The next morning, while they were having breakfast, the young woman noticed her neighbor hanging the washed clothes in her backyard, through her window. “That laundry is not very clean”, she said to her husband, “She doesn’t even know how to wash clothes properly. Perhaps she needs better laundry soap”. To this, her husband looked out the window, but remained silent and continued with his breakfast.

This went on to become repetitive and every time her neighbor stepped out to hang her clothes out, this young woman made similar complaints about the clothes and sighed that she needed better detergent or put in more effort. About a month later, one day, this woman was surprised to see a nice clean line of clothes wrung out to dry in her neighbor’s backyard.

Looking at that, she exclaimed to her husband saying: “Look! She has finally learned how to wash properly. I wonder who taught her this.” Her husband replied back saying, “I got up early this morning and cleaned our windows! You see, it wasn’t the clothes that were dirty all along, but rather our own windows!!” leaving his wife embarrassed and at loss of words…

There’s just one thing that I want to emphasize on today and that is: Your success in any area of your life is dependent on your perspective.

From just the activity today, we already learnt this much about perspective. You can have your own perspective. But our perspective can give only so much rather a limited idea on anything or situation. I am not saying that our individual perspective has to be wrong but I will say that our individual perspective can be incomplete. Like for instance the picture of the women. Some of us could see just one woman.

But it changes when we have a collective perspective. When we have a collective perspective that is when we learn to listen to what others think about the same thing or situation, our perspective increases rather we begin to see things a little more differently. So there are two types of perspective in this world, one is our own and one is a collective that is a group perspective. Now we know that the group is wider than our own.

There’s this fact that I’ve learnt about one’s perspective. Our perspective is based on our past experiences. 

Think about why some of you wrote about relationships the way you did. Didn’t some of you write it based on your past experiences good or bad? What you wrote about relationships was based on what you had experienced before. Now, that can be flawed or incomplete without having to listen to others. A collective perspective changed or rather added on to our individual perspective.  

There’s a story in the bible that illustrates this so well.  We all know the story of Moses. Whether you are a Christian or not today, the movies have captured in part a bit about Moses’ life on how he was a prince of Egypt and how he led the people of Israel out of Egypt and parted the waters of the Red Sea. Here’s the thing to that story: God told Moses to bring the people out of Egypt because He told them that HE was taking them into the Promised Land, a land where they would be free, a land where there was enough and more for them in fact it was called a land that was overflowing with milk and honey.

So they had been walking in the desert for 40 years and it was when they were somewhere in the outskirts of Canaan that was the Promised Land that God tells Moses


Numbers 13:1-2, “And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, 2 "Send men to spy out the land of Canaan, which I am giving to the children of Israel;
Numbers 13:17-20, “17 When Moses sent them off to scout out Canaan, he said, "Go up through the Negev and then into the hill country. 18 Look the land over, see what it is like. Assess the people: Are they strong or weak? Are there few or many? 19 Observe the land: Is it pleasant or harsh? Describe the towns where they live: Are they open camps or fortified with walls? 20 And the soil: Is it fertile or barren? Are there forests? And try to bring back a sample of the produce that grows there — this is the season for the first ripe grapes."


The only thing that Moses and even God asked the spies to do was to see and to look at the land that God was giving to them. So they go and they brought back the report and this is what it says:

Numbers 13:25-28, “25 After forty days of scouting out the land, they returned home. 26 They presented themselves before Moses and Aaron and the whole congregation of the People of Israel in the Wilderness of Paran at Kadesh. They reported to the whole congregation and showed them the fruit of the land. 27 Then they told the story of their trip: "We went to the land to which you sent us and, oh! It does flow with milk and honey! Just look at this fruit! 28 The only thing is that the people who live there are fierce, their cities are huge and well fortified. Worse yet, we saw descendants of the giant Anak.

Numbers 13:30-33, “30 Caleb interrupted, called for silence before Moses and said, "Let's go up and take the land — now. We can do it." 31 But the others said, "We can't attack those people; they're way stronger than we are." 32 They spread scary rumors among the People of Israel. They said, "We scouted out the land from one end to the other — it's a land that swallows people whole. Everybody we saw was huge. 33 Why, we even saw the Nephilim giants (the Anak giants come from the Nephilim). Alongside them we felt like grasshoppers. And they looked down on us as if we were grasshoppers."

Amongst the twelve that went up there, ten of the spies had just one opinion, they saw that everything was good but when they saw the giants that were there in the land, according to their perspective or rather based on what they saw, they felt that they couldn’t overcome and take possession of the land. Let me ask the question why. Do you know why they had such a perspective? It was because of the way they saw themselves. Here’s another fact about perspective:

Our perspective is based on the way we see ourselves.

The ten spies here saw themselves as weak and they compared themselves to the giants saying that they were like grasshoppers in their enemy’s eyes. I wonder why grasshoppers! But many times the way we see different situations and different matters is largely reflective of the way we see ourselves.
Joshua and Caleb had a different perspective of the whole situation. They felt that they could take possession.


You see having your own perspective is one thing. But if having a collective perspective is better then there is a third perspective that I want to focus in on. Why did Joshua and Caleb have a different perspective? Why was it important? We saw one person’s own perspective. We saw what a difference a collective perspective could make and now we see what’s called as a God perspective!
Numbers 14:6-9, “6 Joshua son of Nun and Caleb son of Jephunneh, members of the scouting party, ripped their clothes 7 and addressed the assembled People of Israel: "The land we walked through and scouted out is a very good land — very good indeed. 8 If God is pleased with us, he will lead us into that land, a land that flows, as they say, with milk and honey. And he'll give it to us. 9 Just don't rebel against God! And don't be afraid of those people. Why, we'll have them for lunch! They have no protection and God is on our side. Don't be afraid of them!"

Probably the most important perspective that we should always pay attention is to what God perspective on any has given situation or matter. Because that is the total complete perspective and that is what will truly bring success in our lives.

The people of Israel eventually did cross over into the Promised Land but those who did not believe ever made it. They never saw the Promised Land because of the wrong perspective!

I want to close with this thought today. Maybe you are a Christian and maybe you are not but I know this to be true that your success in any area of your life is dependent on your perspective about it. It’s important not to be limited to your own because it is never complete! We need a larger perspective which is why it is important to talk to others who know about the area much better than we do and most importantly what I would say brings true success is when we decide to look at it from God’s perspective because again sometimes like in this story, even a collective perspective can be wrong and not bring success.



If you want to come into a relationship with this God so that you can have His perspective then it’s important to believe in His Son Jesus Christ whom He sent so that we can have a relationship with Him. When we have a relationship with Him through His Son Jesus Christ then we can begin to have the God perspective as well. 

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7 comments

  1. What an incredible post!
    Teaches us to fix our perspective

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    Replies
    1. I sort of feel sad, that why are women so judgmental? Her husband was so polite l
      I couldn't post on the comment tab for some reaso

      Delete
    2. Thank you!
      I guess some women are judgmental! IT's always better to find out the truth before we pass a comment on anything!

      Delete
  2. Indeed how we see life depends on our own histories and perspective.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Agree..it all depends on our perspective and how we see things or rather want to see things. Good one.

    ReplyDelete

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