Perspective —“Perspective is everything,” as the saying goes; it can cause us to live a life filled with joyful discovery, or fear and regret, and this is no truer then when trying to listen to the Lord. Consider Peter walking on water, at first while looking at Jesus, Peter declares, “Tell me to come to you on the water!” “Come!” our Lord replies – oh the wonders of joyful discovery!  Peter gets exactly what he asked for, but upon looking at the water a brand-new prayer emerges from his heart — instead of “Tell me to come,” it was now “Help me I’m drowning!” Alas, fear and regret.  (Matt 14:25-32) The very same experience, a very different perspective — a perspective shift is a powerful thing. With one perspective we come alive, the other we shrink back. Fortunately, no matter our perspective, just like with Peter, Jesus is with us and is willing to talk to us no matter how our perspective influences the conversation.

I have discovered with myself, someone who seems to have a bit of a track record in hearing the Lord, just such a problem. I know God speaks, I desperately want to hear – but I tend to get in the way. You see I have promises that God has given me, spoken to me, and even confirmed are from Him. But they are not here yet (although some most recently are! Lol)  and I find this causes a conflict in my soul. As I go about my day I am listening to God, but often not for what He wants to tell me, but for what I want to hear. “God please talked to me about my: family, kids, finances, ministry, health, etc.” All things God has given me promises around, all things I know He has on His heart to talk to me about – but unfortunately He isn’t speaking according to my time schedule. This sometimes creates a very bad perspective in me: Maybe God doesn’t want to talk to me, maybe I can’t hear, maybe He isn’t listening, maybe I’m not listening, maybe I’m not doing enough of something – praying, fasting, dealing with my issues, or some such thing. Often, I have discovered, once again the problem comes down to perspective – living out of a perspective of joyful discovery, or fear and regret. If I can just change my perspective from what I want God to talk to me about, and instead switch to what He wants to say to me, I find I move from fear and regret to a sense of joy-filled discovery very quickly.  And you can too. We all just need to learn to change perspective to come alive in His Presence.

Recently, on my honeymoon with my wife Jaye, I had mentioned to her I had always wanted to find a pictograph, an ancient native drawing on a rock…low and behold about ten minutes later Jaye exclaims, “There’s one!” and sure enough there was. Amazing. But not the end of the story. At the end of the honeymoon I wanted to connect with my friends John and Janna who, by their training and school experiences, I thought may just know something about pictographs. Low and behold they texted me that they would be passing through and wanted to connect. One of the first things they say upon meeting, “We just came back from the interior — we were looking for pictographs.”  What are the odds of that.  Fascinating, interesting, a sense of joy-filled discovery came over me. It didn’t answer my questions or solve my problems, but somehow, through it, I knew God was listening and active. It was the joy-filled sense of discovery that gave it away. And this joy-filled sense of coming alive can be cultivated everyday — by learning to not just focus on what we need, but on what God is speaking about in the moment. The trick is not to focus on the need, or what we need to do, or how loud God is speaking – but the joy that comes from the discovery of what God is up to.

It can work like this, at the end of your day, before you go to sleep, take a deep breath, relax and talk to the Father, not just about what you need from Him, or He needs from you…but about where and how He met you during your day. Ask Him the following questions:

• “Jesus what in my day today brought you joy? Why?”

On one particular day I was sure the answer to this question from the Lord was going to be the events at a conference I had just attended; instead the Lord clearly brought into my mind how I had responded kindly to person in a coffee shop. It seemed trivial, but not to the heart of the Lord. Such a surprising answer stirred joy in my soul. But it wasn’t my agenda, or perspective, I was listening for…it was His.

• “Father where in my day did you reveal your heart to me? Why there?”

The other day, for me, it was the swallows. They mean something to me personally, and while meeting with a particular person, at a particular moment — they showed up. I had forgotten about that as the day had been busy, but the Lord was good enough to remind me that night as I asked the above question. It didn’t answer my concerns or fix my needs or goals — but it did fill my heart with the joy-filled discovery of my Father. He had “showed up” that day and I had been too busy focused on my task and almost missed it, for in the end God really just wants to give us Himself.

Recap

The answers to these two questions, on a nightly basis, will more then likely often surprise you. The very nature of the questions are from such a very different perspective. So often we come to God with the perspective of what we need, or what we should do for Him; both “need” and “doing” questions can be very performance based perspectives. The above questions, way of thinking, are from a relationship perspective. You are asking questions that are from the heart. They are “Where are we connecting?” questions. And this is the perspective, a joy-filled/discovery heart perspective, your ABBA would like you to have – that will enable to come alive in His presence. To empower you to wait on Him and walk with Him, while He prepares to provide what you need and direct your footsteps forward.