Tricky shifts

The pain and promise of perspective change.

As I crest the hill in our neighborhood, I hesitate at the stop sign, car idling, to take this picture of the mountain I see every day. When we moved to Harrisonburg, VA, Alison and I were delighted to be so close to Skyline Drive and the Shenandoah National Park.

Only recently did we discover, on a trip up to Skyline Drive, that “our” mountain is just a warmup to the real mountain range. So, all this time, I wasn’t looking at a Park peak. To be honest, it’s a perspective shift that’s a little jarring.

In my study of the gospel of John, I keep finding people who stumble over their preconceptions while talking to Jesus. Let me walk you through a few.

John 3

Nicodemus cannot understand the idea that there is a spiritual rebirth at the start of a relationship with God. Jesus pushes him farther, challenging a man who prides himself in his piety to realize that the Spirit is like the wind, choosing who he will breathe on.

John 4

The Samaritan woman looks at God as down a religious well – she thinks to know him requires the hard work of religion to draw him up closer. Jesus tries to replace that image with one of a spring that leaps (he uses the word “jump”) up to eternal life inside of a believer.

John 6

John tells us that to test Philip, who is from the area where the huge crowd has been listening, Jesus asks him where they can buy bread. Philip cannot consider a miraculous answer with a logistics mind. I’m not sure what answer Jesus had hoped to get from his disciple, but certainly not one of general accounting concerning the cost of bread.

But then there’s this boy. In this parade of stumped people, he’s the only one who seamlessly accommodates Jesus’ paradigm. He doesn’t come directly to the teacher but approaches Andrew with his meager offering of five loaves and two fish.

I find that fascinating. This boy apparently doesn’t need to know how his food will solve the problem. He just brings it. Here, I have this. Perhaps he’s open to the possibilities in Jesus’s viewpoint on how things work because the boy doesn’t have one of his own to replace.

And maybe that’s what Jesus means when he says, “Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” (Matt. 18:3)

There’s less for Jesus to undo.

At our first panoramic parking lot on Skyline Drive, we get out to feel the breadth of the view. And I’m glad that my paradigm was wrong. That peak I can see from my neighborhood is still beautiful, but paltry compared to this.

That’s the powerful truth about Jesus’s ways of seeing. When we overcome our initial confusion and resistance, his outlook is so much grander, more glorious than ours. At every turn.

It’s why he kept at it, kept confronting the small perspectives on life with God. Jesus loves to invite people into his expansive view.

Father, you know how much we cling to our ways of seeing and doing, even when you offer something far better. Help us, by the Spirit, to process the changes you desire. We know in faith that the view will be way better.

Reader: What was a perspective shift that was hard for you at first but turned out to be wondrous?