(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.
