perspective

On Sunday Joel and I were asked to share a short testimony of how living in hope has changed our perspective since loosing Cora.  We thought of so many examples we could share because hope has changed our perspective on everything. But we thought of one specific example of hopes perspective in our lives that I wanted to share with you today too…

Though our bodies are dying, our spirits are being renewed every day. For our present troubles are quite small and won’t last very long. Yet they produce for us an immeasurably great glory that will last forever. 

1 Corinthians 4:16-17 

When we think about Cora’s death and how she won’t physically be a part of our family here on earth, that time without her seems like an eternity. We think of all the milestones that she won’t be here for—birthdays, the first day of kindergarten, graduations, and getting married. She will never be a part of our family nights or family vacations or family pictures. For us, that seems like a LONG time of living without her. That is so hard. We have been reading through a book by Nancy Guthrie entitled The One Year Book of Hope and we recently read something in that book that has helped shift our perspective from the present to the eternal. We personalized it and you could personalize it to your life too. It said,

“Putting the years of life without Cora in perspective of eternity with her makes the time of waiting seem bearable and even brief…So while we wait, we nurture an eternal perspective, a view in which our struggles look small and brief in comparison to the vast joys and eternal satisfaction of forever-life with God.”

When we see our time without Cora in light of eternity it changes everything. We can rejoice because we do get to spend eternity with her. And besides seeing Cora, it is hard to even imagine being in the presence of Jesus and the immense joy and restoration that will bring. Loosing Cora has given us a new longing for heaven that is so sweet.

Not only does this eternal perspective change how we view time, but it also changes how we live now. Living in light of eternity gives us a new sense of urgency; an urgency to invest in the living and an urgency to boldly share with the people around us so that they too might make a decision for eternity.

As we thought about hopes perspective in our lives we were reminded of this verse:

Yet you do not know what your life will be like tomorrow. You are just a vapor that appears for a little while and then vanishes away. 

James 4:14

I challenge us to evaluate how we are living today. Are we stuck in our troubles? Or are we living in light of eternity—allowing the hope that we have to shape our perspectives?