Fresh Perspectives

 

“Because of the Lord’s great love, we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.”

—Lamentations 3:22-23.

Have you ever seen something old from an entirely new perspective?

My family farm, well over a century and a quarter old, stays in my memory like no other place. This is where I grew up and spent the first seventeen years of my life.

From all the childhood years of running from one end to the other to my adult life of watching it grow under my brother’s and his sons’ hands, I have seen the familiar driveways and buildings change and expand—all the time with the stable memory of the house and the original barn I knew so well.

Nothing quite prepared me for the perspective of the drone images my nephew captured last spring. I could see the old familiar places, sort of, but the house and old barn are completely dwarfed by all the new buildings. This view gives me a new appreciation for God’s blessing on our family and the legacy of hard work handed down over five generations.

As I live life, I appreciate the Scriptures more and more. Why? I think because my life experiences give me different ways of looking at the words and allow me to learn about my great God from different perspectives. I see this same kind of experience in the story of David. Psalm 18 contains this heading:

Of David the servant of the Lord. He sang to the Lord the words of this song when the Lord delivered him from the hand of all his enemies and from the hand of Saul.

This long psalm of praise to God comes from the depths of an experience of God’s rescue and victory in David’s life. Interestingly, though, He quoted this entire Psalm again at the end of his life, as recorded in 2  Samuel 22. I can imagine what fresh praises came to him this second time around as King of Israel.

When we read Scripture, God expects us to read with fresh eyes, new praises, and from a new perspective now changed by the experiences He brings into our lives. I often wondered how we could obey the often quoted admonition of Scripture to sing to the Lord a new song.

I think the answer comes to us as we see God from new viewpoints, new perspectives. If we allow Him to lift us to new heights, He will show us things we have never seen, at least in this fresh way. This will permit us to renew our thinking processes, to read His Word with new eyes, and to sing to Him from our hearts with a new song, even if we use old words!