Perspective

I'm re-posting this from my old blog because it's very prominent in my mind right now. A lesson God continually has to re-teach me! (and don't worry, part 2 is still coming. I've got a lot I'm thinking over for it.)

It only takes a moment

for eyes to be opened

a blinding flash

of what should have been obvious

or just a subtle flutter of the veil.

Either way revealing

the truth of the matter

and the way things really are.

Just a glimpse into eternity

a looking from outside myself

seeing through another’s eyes,

through His eyes.

Just long enough to see

how exactly wrong I am

and how upside down

my perception of reality.

His is the true reality

the one that lies beyond

the skin of this world

and often beyond my understanding.

How many times I’ve cried

because I didn’t see

how He see differently

and works toward an end

which is not the one I had in mind.

Until those moments come

when by His grace I see

from a new perspective

if only for a moment.

Finally sinking in

It’s something I’ve always heard. Something I’ve always known to be true. Always acknowledged, always even believed to an extent. But I don’t think I’ve ever fully owned it. Something has always held me back. There’s always been a “yes, but…”. I think it’s finally truly sinking in, though. I’m talking about this passage of scripture:

“For in [Christ] dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily; and you are complete in Him, who is the head of all principality and power.” –Colossians 2:9-10

Complete. Complete in Him. To be complete is to lack nothing, to be whole, entire, having all that is necessary, to be fully realized. In Christ, I am whole. I lack nothing. In Christ, and only in Christ. He is the one who completes me, who did all that is necessary for me to be whole and lacking nothing, and the only one who will or even can ever fill and satisfy me.

“The only one who…can ever fill and satisfy me.” That’s where the “yes, but…” has always come in. Yes, I believe Jesus is the only one who completes me, but somehow I’m not really completely complete without this other person. This other person might just be a vague idea of the perfect man (or woman, as the case may be) someday in the certain to be perfect future, or someone very real with a real name and face attached. And the lie creeps in, and somewhere along the line as I grew up, the lie began to appear more real than the truth. Lies have a way of doing that. I never meant to believe a lie, never was consciously aware of doing so. I thought I was right. I thought my “yes, but…” was really what complete meant.

Until…enough of the “yes, but…” was stripped away, very painfully, that the truth was finally able to begin sinking in. Wow. Complete really does mean fully complete. Not almost complete. Lacking nothing really does mean lacking nothing, not lacking just one thing. Entire means entire. Whole means whole. Even as I’m writing this, it just hit me that complete means that the only reason pieces are missing is because I have chosen to let them be missing. The only emptiness is because is because I have turned to something other than Jesus to fill in the holes and the empty spaces.

Part 2 will be coming soon, but for now it is enough to say that the truth is finally sinking in. I am complete in Him.