Seeing the big picture

Part of moving from adolescence to adulthood is about increasing the size of our world.  When I was an adolescent my world was small.  I wasn’t particularly interested in the news.  My world was only as big as my image, my insecurities and my hormones.  God offers to convert us from being spiritual adolescents who live in a small world into being spiritual adults whose world is eternal.  Indeed, in God not only can we see a bigger picture, we can be a part of that bigger picture.

  

Think of Rahab.  Before those spies entered her inn her world revolved around a squalid means of making a few quid.  Her conversion resulted in her being an esteemed example of faith in action, an ancestor of King David and listed in the genealogy of Jesus.  Her world grew big.  While don’t have her unique role in God’s story, we can have role.  We can become friends of Jesus, co-heirs with him as sons of God.

  

Do we act as people who see the big picture?

  

In a village there was a great soccer team in the primary school.  But some of the parents took to shouting at the referees.  The principle had to call them in for a chat.  The tragedy was that a few of these parents were Christians.  They had become obsessed with the small world of boys sports and forgotten the eternal world of their witness for Christ.

   

Many years ago a woman felt the call to overseas missionary service.  She felt that if she went she might miss the opportunity to marry.  But she knew the big picture.  There is a bigger world than simply meeting mister right.  Her perspective was based around pleasing God.  Make sure that your life is built around that which is eternal and that your priorities are focused on that which will outlast this present age.

   

People who understand the big picture realise how important it is that the church is a welcoming and loving place—because our fellowship can witness to the reality of Christ among us.  People who understand the big picture know how important prayer is—because prayer actually changes the world.  People who understand the big picture don’t stay in their comfort zones—because there is a lost world that needs to hear the good news.