Wednesday, January 12, 2011

Perception vs. Reality

Perception and Reality

I have heard some people say that a person’s perception inevitably becomes their reality. Overtime they become exactly what they think they are, only being able to accomplish the things that they believe that they can, regardless of education, talent, or ability. I am finally beginning to believe that it is true. I can look at my life and the life of many other people and it becomes easy to see how some people fall so far short of their potential. They never believed what others could so readily see as truth about them. They never made it through the insecurity, past the negative of comments, or over the past mistakes. They let all of these affect their self perception in such a way that their obstacles ended up becoming their identity. Suddenly they weren’t smart enough, talented enough, didn’t know the right people, weren’t from the right family, and didn’t have enough money. What could be was overshadowed by what currently was, making what currently was all that there could ever be.

You see this scenario played in out in scripture several times, especially in the Old Testament. Those darn Israelites time and time again let their perception in the natural supersede the reality of who God was and what he was capable of. This caused them to suffer through unnecessary wars, destruction, slavery, and death time and time again. An awesome example of this is found in Numbers 13 and 14. In these chapters The Israelites are in the desert and Moses has sent 12 people to explore the land that God had promised them. Now up until this point these people have seen miracle after miracle performed by God from the time that they were still enslaved in Egypt to them leaving and crossing the Red Sea. He daily was sending them manna from heaven so that they could have food to eat in the desert. He guided them as a cloud by day to shield them from the scorching sun and was a pillar of fire at night to light their path in the darkness and keep them warm. They were basically experiencing a miracle each day of their life. In essence they had absolutely no reason to doubt God or his capabilities.

Well when the scouts came back from checking out the land the people of Israel heard two versions of the same story based on the speaker’s perception. You see the land was everything that God told them it would be. It was fertile and beautiful, a great place to raise a family, grow crops, and have your herds. For them it was truly the land overflowing with milk and honey. However, there was one thing that God didn’t mention when he presented them with the option of moving to this land. It was the fact that there would already be people living there and on top of that fact these weren’t just any people but some of the strongest and most fierce people of their day. Even with seeing who their opposition would be two of the scouts, Caleb and Joshua, focused on the promises of God and therefore their perception of the situation was that although there were currently other people living in the land, if God promised it to them then he could deliver. I’m pretty sure that they knew that in and of themselves they were not capable of defeating all of these people, but they knew that they didn’t have to do it in and of themselves. They had the God of the Universe on their side. As a result, they were ready to go and fight and rightfully claim what God told them was theirs.

The other ten scouts had an altogether different perception on the situation. They focused on the challenge instead of the God that promised to be there with them through every challenge. They couldn’t look past what they were seeing to believe that the future that God had promised them was possible. All they could see was the obstacles and as a result they did their best to convince the people that it would be in their best interest to stay right where they were at instead of venturing further. They just didn’t have enough faith to carry them pass what seemed to be their current reality. It didn’t matter how many times God had proven himself faithful. All that they could see were the seemingly insurmountable obstacles that they were facing.

As a result of their unbelief and their influence they caused the people of Israel to lose their right to venture into the promised land. God was so disappointed in their lack of faith in him that he allowed their perception of the situation to become their reality. They believed that they would never see the promised land and he made it a true a statement for them. The only ones that made were the two that believed that it was possible from the beginning.

All twelve men involved had experienced the same God and they all saw the same thing in the natural when they went on their scouting mission. Perception of the situation is what made the difference in the course of their lives. They all received what they believed was possible from the beginning. The ten that were skeptical and couldn’t see how God could deliver were never given the opportunity to experience God delivering them. The two that believed that God could make a way had the joy of experiencing exactly that. God making a way out of no way to deliver on what he had promised.

Perception can truly become your reality. Make sure that regardless of what you are seeing in then natural you make it a point to believe what God is showing you in the spiritual!

Saturday, January 1, 2011

New Year's Resolutions

New Year’s Resolutions

Soooooooooo, this is that time of year when people start thinking of all of the stuff that didn’t go right last year and that they want to change for the year to come. They reflect on all of the major situations and they talk about how they want to grow or where they want to go and they make a short or long list depending on the person of how they’re going to get there. I am switching things up this year. I am going to focus on one thing and let it be the driving force behind all of my decisions to the events in my life for the year to come. My resolution is to make each minute better than the last one that I had.

For me it’s just that simple. When you really think about it all you have is the minute that you’re in. The next one may never come. People die in an instant and all of the plans that they had for the year to come will mean nothing. The moment after death is irrelevant. The moment right before though, that is a moment that you can do something with. You can share a little more love, laugh if you feel like, smile for no reason, or cry if you want to. You can pray, praise, or perfect! You can encourage, inspire, and enable. You can do so much with the moment that’s present. Unfortunately, so many people forsake the moment that they’re in for a moment that may never come. They lose all of the possibility of the now, hoping in a future that may be expiring sooner than they think. I don’t want to be that person. Don’t get me wrong. I’m a planner by nature. I will always have some sort of multi-step process in play to get things done. There’s always a method for getting from the point that I’m at the next one on the list. I just don’t want to get so caught up in the plans that the current moment is never lived. That would be a total waste of all of the moments that I am given if I spend all of the current in anticipation of the next. I want to live now, love now, laugh now, enjoy now, work now, grow now, be fully me at my best right now. And if I get another moment, cool. There’s an opportunity to be better.

So that’s the theme for 2011. Make each moment better than the last. I don’t know how many I’ve got. I can’t count the number that I’ve wasted. I vow to make each one count. This is my resolution from here on out!