Me: That looks like fruit.
Prodigal: It is just an illusion, it is painted on the table.
Me: You have to pay attention to tell the difference.
Prodigal: Paying attention is important.
This is from God Will Make A Way: Stories of Hope
Is what you see what you get?
Not always.
An entire room of a fifteenth-century Italian palace was once put on display at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. One wall of the room had twelve wooden cupboards whose open doors revealed about a hundred objects on the shelves, including an ancient hourglass, a celestial globe, old leather books, and various musical instruments. The wall space around the cupboards was paneled, and benches lined the sides of the room.
Unfortunately, some nearsighted visitors occasionally tried to it on those benches, only to discover that the entire room was an optical illusion. Each wall was a flat surface.
More than 500,000 pieces of wood in various shapes and colors had been used to create the perspective and shadows that made the walls of the room look three-dimensional.
We may think today that we are looking reality squarely in the face, but unless we accommodate the spiritual dimension of any particular person, activity, event, experience, or relationship, we are experiencing an optical illusion. We are not fully seeing the plan God has in mind. The only way to see the world as God sees it is to ask the Holy Spirit to impart that ability to us. We cannot see as God sees by our own willpower or design. Genuine insight and wisdom come from within and are possible only as we allow the Holy Spirit to do His work in our lives.
What we regard as a failure may actually be the open door to a tremendous success. What we view as a limitation may truly be a protection. What we define as a trial may be a growing process. What we conclude to be a loss may actually be a gain. Only God can take the trials and tragedies in our lives and turn them into blessings.
Ask the Lord to give you His perspective and His understanding in every situation you face.
While we look not at the things which are seen, but at the thing which are not seen; for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal.
2 Corinthians 4:18
Jennifer Van Allen
www.theprodigalpig.com
www.faithincounseling.org
