Perspective

Even in church, we are so shaky in our faith in the next world that we often talk as if the teachings and promises of our Lord were a mere convenience for putting this world to rights.*

These words remind us of the real context of all our actions. This "reality" we perceive with our senses is but a shadow of the real Reality - the life we have through Christ in God. Although citizens of this world we are also, and much more importantly, subjects in His Kingdom. Everything we do in this life has its real significance in eternity.

The assumption that Christians should always have health, or no financial woes, or always be happy in this world, contradicts the actual experience of our Lord, of His first disciples, and of faithful Christians through the ages and today. As Bob Dylan once said:

You know, these are yuppie words, happiness and unhappiness. It's not happiness or unhappiness, it's either blessed or unblessed. As the Bible says, 'Blessed is the man who walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly.'

We are blessed when we keep everything in perspective.

*Joy Davidman, Smoke on the Mountain, 1953