Lost in Life

DAILY PERSPECTIVE SESSIONS WITH GOD

by Steve Cornell

Lost perspective?
Have you ever lost perspective? You’ve just started to look at things the wrong way. Maybe a caring friend says, “You need to get perspective.” “You really need to change the way you’re looking at this.”

Loss of perspective often happens when we’ve faced difficult setbacks or hardships. We become confused or maybe upset or flat out angry about something and our way of seeing things becomes hard to sort out.

Trials and times of loss are perspective-testing times! They’re times when we have to decide how to look at life. And, this can be serious stuff because so much of life is affected by how we view it—by our outlook.

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We also have to admit that perspective (how we look at life) is highly affected by two other contributors:

1. Our 18 year factor: A parent’s perspective or a significant disruption or an ongoing dysfunction from your home of origin has major influence on how you see things. But remember that redemption reaches us here: “For you know that it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your forefathers” (I Peter 1:18). You don’t have to be trapped in a negative outlook because your father modeled it for you. God redeems us from the vain ways of our 18 year factor.

1. Our personalities or temperaments: Are you a Type A or a Steady Eddie or Sanguine, Choleric, Melancholic, or Phlegmatic. There is no doubt that these differences affect perspective. Some people, like the grey, gloomy donkey in Winnie-the-Pooh, take the Eeyore approach to life. Ever met an Eeyore? Ever been one or gone through an Eeyore phase? And nothing bugs an Eeyor more than a Tigger! Always bouncing around in an electrifying and exuberant mood—he’s the eternal optimist looking to make the most out of what life has to offer.

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Hey, listen, it’s possible that somebody reading this has really lost perspective and just isn’t processing life very well. Consider some possible life-controlling perspectives:

1. Discouraged:

Maybe you’re discouraged. Life has been hard and you’re having trouble seeing through your difficulties. Discouragement, at a deeper level, is a loss of perspective.

2. Negative:

Perhaps you’ve even become very negative, cynical and sarcastic. You’re looking at life through the lens of pessimism.

3. Angry:

Or, maybe anger and resentment are your primary lens for seeing life. You’re always in a slow burn that can erupt at any time. For you, anger is not an occasional disruption of life; it’s the way you process most of life.

4. Complacent:

Or, maybe you’ve become complacent. You’ve drifted from God. You don’t take spiritual matters very seriously because you’re just living for yourself.

5. Self absorbed:

You’re so into yourself: how you feel and what you want and you, you, you—it always has to be your way and about you.

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• All of these involve perspective—a way of seeing things or construing life:


• A construal! An outlook or lifeview.

And, again, if you’re in one of these perspectives too deeply, you might need some counseling (which is often perspective gaining sessions). But, I do think that what I have to share here can help anyone get and keep a good and godly perspective. And remember this: The thing about perspective is that it not only affects you; — all of those who must relate with you or are under your influence (parents) are affected by your perspective. Here’s an example:

• Genesis 37:3-4 “Now Israel loved Joseph more than any of his other sons, because he had been born to him in his old age; and he made a richly ornamented robe for him. 4 When his brothers saw that their father loved him more than any of them, they hated him and could not speak a kind word to him.”

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OK, So here’s my big recommendation for you (and it’s as simple as it is profound):

“All Scripture was given to us for perspective formation.”

As I unpack this, it might change the way you approach the Bible and change the your whole outlook on life so that it conforms to God’s will.

II Timothy 3:16-17:

“All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, 17 so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.” (NIV)


The New Living Translation:

“All Scripture is inspired by God and is useful to:

1. teach us what is true and


2. to make us realize what is wrong in our lives.


3. It corrects us when we are wrong and


4. teaches us to do what is right.

17 God uses it to prepare and equip his people to do every good work.” (NLT)

Follow me on this:

God’s method for transforming us into His likeness is that we: “be transformed by the renewing of your mind” Romans 12:2

Ephesians 4:23 described it as being “made new in the attitude of your minds” God wants to transform our outlook, attitude or perspective! (cf. Philippians 2:3-5)

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It’s not that we all become the same personality type or temperament, but that we all yield our personalities and temperaments to the transforming influences of:

1. The Spirit inspired Word: all Scripture


2. The Spirit indwelt community: the reinforcement of godly perspective through our connection with our local Church!

The Holy Spirit is the agent of spiritual transformation (II Corinthians 3:18) and His two primary instruments are the Word and the Church — the community of believers.

First, the Word:

We confess that we are a people of the Book. We believe that Scripture is God’s revelation of Himself and His ways of dealing with His creation. Apart from it, we’re reduced to subjective human opinion and speculation about God, life, death and eternity. We have nothing that speaks with univocal and universal authority that transcends human culture and opinion. We have many stories but no Original Story from which our individual stories originate. The Bible provides this for us!

Consider the way the apostle opened his message to the philosophers of Athens: “The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth; …he himself gives all men life and breath and everything else. From one man he made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live.” (Acts 17:24ff. )

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Of course, the Bible was not originally written to us– but it was all written for us. And, it presents God’s dealings through different times of history— which means we do not apply all of it the same way. We must “rightly handle it” (II Tim. 2:15).

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A Way of Looking at the Bible:

Engagement ring illustration: setting and jewel

The ring– the Setting: History, culture, language—background stuff.

The Jewel: universal, univocal truths that transcend culture and time because they are rooted in God’s Character and will. (We often refer to these as principles or applications to our lives).

So when reading the Bible, some things relate specifically to the original recipients (and seem foreign and strange to us) —-but from the text emerges gems that transcend limitations of time and culture!

Examples: II Corinthians 1:3-5, 8-9; 4:16-18; 12:7-10; James 1:1-5

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When you enter the Bible, I am encouraging you to see it as a “Perspective formation session with God.” Your personal devotions offer a time to get perspective or maintain godly perspective. Again, all scripture is given for perspective formation.

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Three unique perspectives from the Bible:

What the Bible offers is different from positive thinking books or other material in that it confronts us with:

1. Vertical truths for the horizontal issues of life

2. Eternal truths for the temporal circumstances of life

3. God-centered truths for the self-centered default mode of our lives.

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The Bible also answers really important questions: Origin, meaning, morality and destiny. It tells us: Where death came from? What happens after death?

Follow this because there’s more to it:

Behind actions, emotions, and attitudes are ways of thinking (perspectives) that fortify the actions, emotions, and attitudes.

Why do I do this? (Your struggling with habits and actions)

Why do I feel this way? (Your struggling with emotional issues)

What we need is counter-veiling ways of thinking (perspectives) to confront that ways of thinking that hold us in destructive ways of life. This is the role the Bible fulfills. It challenges our perspective!

Again: II Timothy 3:16: “All Scripture is inspired by God and is useful to:

1. teach us what is true and


2. to make us realize what is wrong in our lives.


3. It corrects us when we are wrong and


4. teaches us to do what is right.

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Get this: Loss of perspective must be continuously challenged by daily perspective formation sessions with God.

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But, we cannot do this alone! God designed that we flourish in community not in isolation! We must allow others to speak into our lives to reinforce vertical, eternal, God-centered perspectives. And, the Church is to be the place where this happens through two primary means:

Teaching and Fellowship

1. Teaching:

There is a direct connection between the strength of the Church and the strength of pulpit ministry. The pulpit raises the bar for all teaching in the Church. The pulpit ministry is about helping people get perspective: God’s perspective. It should be engaging and deeply challenging (not fluff stuff). There should be a sense that you have heard from God based on Scripture.

I Corinthians 14:23-25:

23 So if the whole church comes together and everyone speaks in tongues, and some who do not understand or some unbelievers come in, will they not say that you are out of your mind? 24 But if an unbeliever or someone who does not understand comes in while everybody is prophesying, he will be convinced by all that he is a sinner and will be judged by all, 25 and the secrets of his heart will be laid bare. So he will fall down and worship God, exclaiming, “God is really among you!” Not “that was cool.” “Church isn’t too bad.”

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2. Fellowship:

People rarely go the wrong way alone and they rarely stay on the right course alone. God wants us to travel in community. And His plan is for the local Church to be the place where we find the encouragement and accountability we need.

Hebrews 3:12-14

“See to it, brothers, that none of you has a sinful, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God. 13 But encourage one another daily, as long as it is called Today, so that none of you may be hardened by sin’s deceitfulness.”

Follow this:

When people lose perspective, they often travel in the company of people who share they’re outlook. Sometimes it works the other way and people allow others to shape their perspective. This is often one of the biggest challenges of our work environments. We need to regularly surround ourselves with people who reinforce godly perspective.

Steve Cornell