How
Life Couldn't Be Better
by Major Danielle
Strickland
I spent some time today with the man I love
doing what we did when we first met. Hanging out with homeless
people. Or as my son Judah puts it (so much better), “visiting
friends, who have no homes.” One friend, Alma, is pictured
above and she is rockin’ the rose colored glasses. When we
asked how she was she said she couldn’t be better… life was
amazing.
It was then that I knew she was seeing life
through a different lense than me. And this matters.
During lent I’ve been participating in a
challenge at www.infinitumlife.com to capture an image of
living a boundless life, characterized by surrender,
generosity and mission everyday. And it’s made me pay
attention to the way I see the world. The things and people I
see and how I view them. It’s made me wonder about my
perspective on things. And how that perspective matters.
Because how I see the world and its people drives my response
to them – and to God.
God modelled this in the creation story.
When he made the elements of his creation he ‘saw that it was
good’. Every time. He ‘saw that it was good’. And when he made
the finale – the last act – the top of the order it was
humanity he made and gave breath. The scripture says ‘male and
female’, created in the image of God. And he saw that it was
VERY good. He saw. And the way he saw brought value to us. And
still does.
How God sees you is not dependent on the
world’s lenses. He does not look at the outside, which he
declares out loud (all the time) through scripture. He is not
looking for fancy or rich or accomplished or cool. He is also
not looking for failure, flaws, imperfections or rejection. He
is simply not looking either way – he is looking past those
ways with his own way of love, and value and meaning and
beauty INSIDE of you. You look amazing to him. Just like he
looked upon the first humans he looks at the person he created
in you and says, ‘you are very good’.
Often when we present the gospel story we
start with sin. Sin is our human capacity to mess everything
up – including ourselves. But sin is not where the story
started. The story actually starts in Genesis 1 not Genesis 3.
And it starts with God seeing what he had created and
declaring it good. That we were good. We were created for
goodness. For beauty. For truth. For freedom. And that is why
when we catch glimpses of goodness, beauty, truth or freedom
something stirs in us. It’s the very image of God in us that
is stirred. In our deepest selves it is an awakening, an
invitation. A new way to view the world. A fresh way to view
ourselves and really see each other.
So if ever I needed a reminder to put on
some rose colored glasses it was today. Thanks Alma for the
reality check that life couldn’t be better.
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