Fortunate as Altha and I are to live at the foot of the Santa
Cruz Mountains, there is hill close by I can climb when I need a little perspective. My friend John Woodward recently wrote a post
entitled, “A Higher View,” in which he poses the question, “Why is it so
fascinating to get a higher perspective? Could it be that we get accustomed to
the ordinary appearance of our surroundings and lose sight of the larger scene?”
One of the reasons I was put off by the movie (remember, I
didn’t read the book) “Heaven is for Real” is that it presented Heaven as a “place”—more
than what it is: a higher realm. The closer I get to my last days on earth, the
more I take comfort in higher thoughts. (I am just sorry it took so long to get me to this point!) While we are yet living in this lower realm, it is “natural” to get
caught up in it (or is it ‘caught down’?). What better person than Paul—who was once caught up to the third heaven—to exhort us, “Set your
sight on things above” (Col. 3:2, Jubilee Bible). To do otherwise is to be terribly short-sighted (2 Peter 1:9).
Over my 20+ years of employment with the Federal government,
I had many co-workers from different regions of the U.S. One time a co-worker from the South, said: “I
miss magnolia trees; there are none in California.” Of course that’s false—we had a magnolia tree in our yard at home. Another time, a co-worker told me there were no drive-up banks in California. Both of these ‘foreigners’ had come to false conclusions based on a small vantage point. They were short-sighted.
Short-sightedness began with Adam, who, at Eve's beckoning, succumbed to the wiles of forbidden fruit (symbol of desires that claim our immediate attention) and concluded
it was a better offer than God’s long-term plans. In hindsight, you and I ask astonishingly, ‘how
could anyone be so short-sighted?’
But are we really any less so?’
Whether by ignorance or willful neglect of God’s truth, all of us have a propensity for short-sightedness, “falling short
of the glory of God” (Rom. 3:23). After reminding his readers they have inherited God’s
divine nature, whose qualities include moral excellence, self-control,
perseverance, godliness, love, etc., Peter tells them if we were not growing
in these, they must be either blind or shortsighted” (2 Pet 1:9). Let us examine, honestly, our own short-sightedness. “Open our eyes so we may behold these wonderful
things” (Ps. 119:18).
