Forced Perspective

Perspective

The Eiffel Tower, completed in 1889, stands at 984 feet. The picture above describes a common trick in photography that's called "Forced Perspective."  Which, according to adobe.com means "Piquing curiosity with forced-perspective photographs. In person, perspective is informed by human visual perception. How the eyes and brain work together gives objects the proper scale of reference based on context. It's how you know a tall building in the distance is many stories high even if it looks smaller than a human standing next to you."

This concept perfectly illustrates what God showed me and has been trying to show me for a few years now. If you look at prior topics I have covered, I have covered perspective more than most other topics. Perspective is a powerful thing. It can cause years of antagonism to disappear, or force your closest friend to your most bitter enemy.

I am sure many of us have been bitten by perspective in one way or another. An illustration that God gave me the other day, though gave me pause and renewed hope in many issues that I have seen. If you have your phone on you, and it has a face camera, open your camera app and prepare to take a selfie. If you can, move a finger close to your camera, but keep your face further away. It will appear, in the image on your phone, as if your finger is bigger than your head. Kind of like the picture above with the Eiffel Tower. Knowing that the average American stands at just 5'9" tall, there's NO WAY a person could in fact hold the entirety of the actual Eiffel Tower in their hand. Yet our eyes show us that this person held it.

What God showed me is that sin has a way of inflating itself in our eyes. Our challenges, too, can do that. They start out small, but eventually, sin and troubles pile on us and threaten to overwhelm us. That's why it is that so many men and women of God start out bright and zealous and over time fall into sin and disgrace. The problem is they allow sin in, they allow life's troubles in, and eventually, they pile up and seem huge. But what God showed me is that we have to shift them to the proper perspective.

When it comes to sin the Bible says in 1 John 1:19 that "If we confess our sins... He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from ALL unrighteousness."

Romans 3:22 further explains, "This righteousness is given through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference between Jew and Gentile," meaning that we are righteous when we put our faith in Christ.

So how do we avoid having sin and challenges feel like they will overwhelm us? Put God in the proper perspective.

Hebrews 12:2 tells us, "Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God."

Furthermore, James 4:8 tells us that if we "Come near to God and he will come near to you..."

When we fix our eyes on Jesus, and we focus on getting nearer to God, it has a way of moving the issues into their proper perspective. God is SO BIG that everything else is small by comparison.