Depth Perception

While working away on any design project at work, I often tune into podcasts that integrate enough background noise in my environment to keep me refreshed while sitting at a desk, but it's intentional noise that tunes me into the heart of God all day.

And so this is what I've taken away from my recent time with God, podcasts, and last week's sermons I've heard at Sugar Hill Church (see "From Victim to Victor" here). In the midst of living out my faith blindly, really blind, and seemingly against all odds of what today's culture says, I'm choosing to remember:

• God wants to restore our depth perception. (See, the photo progression above illustrates how as my thumb gets closer to the eye my visual or perceived problem doesn't seem so big. Just as the framed quote suggests, "the real voyage of discovery lies not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes." I'd like to add a very important spiritual element to Marcel Proust's wise words. Just as we get closer to the Lord, our problems don't seem so big – it's all about depth perception.)
• God is bigger than anything we or our children are going through.
• Denial in what is going on is not the same as living with faith.

We got some very big news last week for a step forward along this adoption process. A couple on answers we have been praying over for ten months, but with the excitement also came a wave of anxiety as all the what-ifs started swirling in my head. Phone call after phone call with authorities don't seem to help me put all the puzzle pieces together yet, instead it brings more questions.

I want to teach my children and live my faith out choosing to not live in fear of our individual history or the unknown future. To do this, it's key to place ourselves in a position close to the Lord daily so that our depth perception of the what-ifs is so much smaller (and nearly invisible) as we trust in our Lord who is on the throne. And it's at that moment we choose to be counter-culture and trust in the Lord, despite the circumstances, that you and I become victors – not after we walk out of the fires (Daniel 3:16-18). My God is able to deliver and He is there with us each step of the way (Psalm 34:17)!

Will you believe with us that God can change the situation and past history's impact for our son? That we can all lean into Jesus and become completely restored strong men and women of God?

In our own lives will we choose to walk completely blind in our faith, rather than trying to meet our needs on our own? (I know this is a daily lesson for type-A people like moi). Will we choose to become victors before we each walk into our own fires trusting our Lord will deliver (not always will He keep us from these battles, but He promises to be with us through it). Who do we really believe Jesus to be in our daily lives – great man of wisdom or Lord of our lives? Dig deep and chew on this with me or share what living your blind faith out and choosing victory looks like on your journey with those around you.