Which View?

  How I see myself and how God sees me. The difference between these two perspectives is what determines who I become. So often, my view is obscured, subjective, contrary to the truth of what I am really made to be. For instance, in the times when I am the most afraid, the most vulnerable, when I think that God would want to be the most distant, He draws closer. Why? Because He loves. Because He sees me as beautiful. He chooses to befriend. In so many times over the course of my life, I have called myself a failure; I have said that my life didn't matter, that I felt no purpose. And yet, God saw potential. God saw a need. God saw hope when I thought there was none.

  We are so apt to look at what is dying. We despair because the darkness weighs heavy. We view ourselves and think," Nothing about me matters." But God is seeing something different. To fully experience new life, to taste of resurrected glory, is to come around to His perspective. To be open to Grace is to find hope. Because of Who we were made for and why. We were not made to please ourselves, to feed our own desires with an insatiable quest for happiness...no...we were made for a King's pleasure! We were made for a life of meaning, of discovering the ways He loves!

   My view always leads me down the road of regret, of failure, of numerous shortcomings, of despair. Yet, His view leads to life. His view brings renewal. His view makes the ugly turn beautiful because He is not afraid of me, nor of my past. He wants to embrace, to transform. Will I learn to see a new way? That is the question...