Vantage Point

Ahh, Spring is in the air.  I love this time of year.  Everything is new and budding.  The days are longer.  The world seems fresh and alive from its Winter slumber.  Spring means new possibilities around every corner.

Unfortunately, Spring also means cleaning around every corner.  What is it about the Daylight Savings sunlight that tends to highlight the dust and debris in my life.  I like Winter's shadows much better for hiding what I want to avoid - Spring cleaning. 

I thought I kept my personal world pretty tidy but apparently not so much, thank you for pointing this out mother nature.  For example, my yard and garden look somewhat like a war zone.  The harsh winds of Winter were not kind to many of my plants.  It appears that no amount of encouragement is going to bring them back.  They sit there brown and lifeless mocking me and pleading for me to replace them with something beautiful, like flowers.  This I can do and enjoy at the same time.  There is other cleaning beyond my capabilities.

My palm tree is three stories tall.  The cold Winter killed many of its fronds.  Now they hang there dead and lifeless.  The tree needs a thorough pruning but cutting and pruning the tree is far beyond my reach.  My neighbors will just have to deal with the appearance of my raggedy tree.  At least that's how it looks from the sidewalk.

On closer observation, maybe those brown, limp fronds aren't so lifeless after all.  From inside the house I have a different vantage point from which to view the palm tree.  From my third story window I can see into the tree.  And what I see from way up here is life, exciting new life springing forth.

Nestled safely in some of those dead and dying fronds is a dove's nest.  The nest is snug and secure and protected from Spring's high winds and rain.  A mating pair of doves has found the palm tree's strong and tough arms a perfect place to start their family.  None of this is viewable from the street.  The casual observer has no idea what life transformations are taking place high above her head.  To the naked eye, the tree is ugly and in need of attention to make it pretty and useful.  The naked eye can miss so much. 

We live our lives down on the sidewalk, viewing everything through naked eyes.  We don't see things happening in our lives and so we think nothing is happening in our lives.  We miss so much.  But God has a different vantage point.  He sees everything clearly.  He sees the events and changes taking place now that we will only see later.  God knows that just because something looks dead, lifeless and unusable it is far from it.  And a lot of the time, the uglier the better for God.

Take a stroll the the scriptures some time.  Time and time again the people God used were not the ones most people would expect.  He chose the prostitutes, the tax collectors, the lepers, the adulters, the lairs and murders, and the poor, penniless and downtrodden.  If the world didn't want them God and Jesus did.  Because God could see what these people could not.  God could see their hearts, not the hearts they showed to the world, but their true hearts, found inside their inner most being.  And its there God built His nest from which he would bring forth new life into these people. And into you and me. 

My tree looks ugly and lifeless.  But if I were to prune my tree right now I would tear out the dove's home and nest lovingly prepared for new life.  I would stop right in its tracks the plans those dove parents have for their babies.  But because I was given a view from a different vantage point I know that the tree is not lifeless and it is truly far from ugly.  The same can be said for you and me.  Sometimes we see only the ugly and lifeless parts of our lives.  But God can give us a different vantage point from which to observe things; to see the plans He has for us.  He knows things are not what they seem.  He knows that from death, life will spring forth. 

God knows how beautiful we really are.  And that beauty never dies, even when covered in Winter's dirt and debris. 
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