Before moving to the city of Worcester fifteen years ago, Jean and I lived in a village in the flat Cambridgeshire fens. This was land that, before it was drained in the 17th century, was frequently covered with water, such that the only habitable places were effectively islands. Now, with modern roads, travelling around the area is as straightforward as anywhere else, but historically this wasn’t the case. The local inhabitants had a well-founded fear of one particular weather phenomenon – fog. When this descended, moving around the locality was dangerous because of the drainage ditches surrounding the fields, and the channels that these feed into; there was a very real risk of stumbling into the water and not being able to scramble out – some are quite deep.
Fog
My only experience of this hazard was one winter evening when I had attended a church meeting in another village some thirteen miles away across the open fenland. There was a remote road that had been constructed to link air force bases during World War II. This was relatively straight, but did have a few sharp bends. During that meeting, the fog had descended and spread across the flat fens – it was the densest that I can remember ever encountering. On my way home, once I left the relative safety of the village, with its street lighting, and began on my journey across the fen, the only method of navigation was by the dim light reflected from the cat’s eyes in the centre of the roadway. I could just make out one or two ahead of me. I adopted the strategy of driving straight down the middle, ensuring that I didn’t risk leaving the road and going into the ditches that lined it on either side. This was an eerie and daunting experience. I returned to the left-hand side only when encountering the headlights of another vehicle approaching, which was a rare occurrence as nobody would be foolish enough to make such a journey without a very good reason.
Constraints
This BLOG post is about perspective. My perspective during that journey in the fog was limited to no more than two cat’s eyes that I could actually make out; I dared not take my own eyes off of them as my safety depended upon such focused concentration. I appreciate that this was an extreme circumstance, but then this is just a matter of degrees – our perspectives are normally constrained by circumstance. We might be driven by schedules, by things that we hope to achieve, or by relationships that we want to maintain or develop, etc. Our perspectives might well be determined by the limits of our own imagination. Perhaps we are just not inclined to think deeply and to consider an alternative frame of reference to the one that we are already accustomed to.
Kingdom perspective
There is such an alternative – one that, for Christians, is not optional but rather is essential. This is the heavenly one; God’s frame of reference (Colossians 3:1-3). To understand this, we need to free ourselves from our focus on the mundane, to make a conscious decision to adopt a heavenly perspective. We are all familiar with Paul’s injunction for us to allow our minds to be renewed, which we find in both Romans 12:2 and Ephesians 4:23 (verse 17ff). I believe, though, that to enable such a change, we need to look at our own circumstances from God’s perspective – surely this entails more than just adopting a Christian way of behaving, whatever that may look like. We must change our motivation before we can expect our behaviour to fall in line. For as long as our thinking is earth-bound, we cannot expect to have a kingdom perspective; that only comes through our surrender to the purposes of God, to seeing things as he sees them. We are, after all, citizens of the heavenly kingdom, and that is where we need to dwell and from where we should be operating. Whilst on earth, we are ambassadors of that place, into this place – the society in which we are physically located. We belong elsewhere but are on a mission to our fellow inhabitants; our neighbours, friends, colleagues and earthly family. We represent God before such people – and to them as well. Let’s not limit our efforts to surviving within the here and now, but use this time to herald God’s kingdom and to proclaim his purposes to those with whom we come into contact.
Starting point
We need, of course, to proclaim the gospel message, which is essential to hear for anyone to come into salvation. The second birth is, however, only the beginning of someone’s spiritual journey. And the message about saving grace is just the first layer to understanding the purpose of God for those who choose to honour him. Some see receiving salvation as the big change, which, in one sense, it is. Through this, we move from death to life – we were dead in our sins but are now alive in Christ. However, to be born again is only moving through a doorway into a new life; it is but the start of our journey, our initial step of faith.
Standing still
How sad if we remain there, or move on just a little way and then become discouraged or sidetracked. You might feel that you are in a spiritual fog, but this is no time to stop still. Better by far to focus on the cat’s eyes and move forward step by step until the fog lifts and you can see once again the terrain through which you have been travelling, and the horizon that you are aiming to reach. We might be focusing on the objective, but we need to embrace the journey too. This is the journey that God has called us to make, a pilgrimage that is not about achievement but change and growth. If we are not changing, then we will not be growing either. If we decline to change, then we are resisting God’s will for our lives. If we refuse to change, then we are standing still, and it should be no surprise if the fog has descended around us. The renewal of our minds is a matter of fundamental change, not mere adaptation. We are called to embrace God’s purpose for us, and to seek and live within a heavenly perspective, so that we can truly be his ambassadors rather than mere advocates of religion.
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