Perception
Jeremiah 1:11 NIV
The word of the Lord came to me: "What do
you see, Jeremiah?"
"I see the
branch of an almond tree," I replied.
Are You Certain of What You See?
The very first time Mary Jo and I went out together,
I borrowed a friend’s car and took her to the Robert E. Lee Theater. This was a two story movie theater and it
was the fanciest in New Orleans. The
movie we saw was quite memorable…it was the four hour “Reds”…and yes, it felt
more like eight hours. I more than made
up for the terrible movie choice by getting Mary Jo nachos. She had never before had nachos and so I felt
like I had brought her to the Eiffel Tower or taken her on a camel ride through
Morocco. The nachos even had jalapeƱo
slices on it. Now for a year and a half
we did these same sorts of things…I took her places, paid for the meal or the
movie…just the two of us and we had fun together. She didn’t go with any other guys to movies
or restaurants or festivals during this time and I didn’t go with any other
girls. Imagine my surprise after a year
and a half of this exclusive attention we gave to each other my discovery that
Mary Jo did not think we were dating. I
kind of wondered what she thought we had been doing all this time…going on
field trips…creating a review of restaurants…baby-sitting each other? I thought, and call me “crazy”, that we had
been dating the past year. So here we
were, two sane adults, experiencing the very same events and engaging in
conversations together over a very long period of time, having completely
different views of what we had been doing this whole time.
What is fascinating about perception is that it is a
function of reality that is really real.
A wind really does blow a pine cone off a tree. A bank really does charge you a fee for
bouncing a check. Your wife really does
say, “I love you” and your boss really does warn you of potential
lay-offs. The car in front of you
actually stopped and you did hit it and your mom told you that if you did not
clean up your room, she would take your IPad away from you. Really real things happen all around us but
sometimes it is more important for us and for others our perception of those
real things rather than the real things themselves. One man commits suicide when his girlfriend
breaks up with him but another man whose girlfriend breaks up with him finds
someone else to date. One child cries
when a bully punches him but another child swings back and laughs about it
afterward. A mother frets anxiously
about her son coming home late from a party; another falls asleep peacefully
before he gets back. Perception is not
always reality but the two go hand in hand in determining the reality of many
outcomes in life.
There is in the ancient writings of the prophet
Habakkuk a case study on perception. As
the Babylonian armies began their approach toward Jerusalem it became clear to
all Judea that the invasion could not be stopped. Judah’s armies had no answer for the Babylonian
juggernaut. Destruction of Jerusalem
seemed inevitable; slavery, rape and even death a real possibility for anyone
still alive when the Babylonians finally overran the city. Habakkuk faced the hard cold reality of
invasion with not a hint of fluffy optimism.
His prayer to God was simple and direct.
Though the fig tree does not bud and there are no grapes on the
vines, though the olive crop fails and the fields produce no food, though there
are no sheep in the pen and no cattle in the stalls, yet… (Habakkuk 3:17-18
NIV) As Habakkuk writes, nothing is
settled. The invasion hasn’t begun. The walls of Jerusalem are still intact. The farms and ranches continue to provide
food for everyone. Yet…Habakkuk added in
the space between what seemed to be coming and what was there before him. This was where reality met perception for
Habakkuk and we face it too. How we
respond to “yet” is critical to the reality that we have as it was for Habakkuk. The “yet” for Habakkuk was, “I will
rejoice in the Lord, I will be joyful in God my Savior.” (Habakkuk 3:18 NIV) This was the way Habakkuk saw things. If everything falls apart and it goes from
bad to worse, I will rejoice in the Lord, I will be joyful in God my Savior. Perception was unbending in the
circumstance…crops failed or not, sheep in the pen or taken, grapes sweet and
luscious or shriveled and hard, Habakkuk would see it all as “God is my
Savior…I will love Him.”
In the book of Daniel is a second case study of perception. A few years later, after Babylon had
conquered Jerusalem and brought a number of the Jews back to Babylon with them,
some of the captives because of their special abilities were given significant
government jobs. Three of them,
Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego faced a terrible dilemma just as they really got
started in their careers. The king
enacted a law that whenever a traveling band came to your town and began to
play, if anyone refused to worship the ninety foot gold portable idol they
brought with them, those people would be thrown into a blazing furnace. The reality was that this idol was before the
three Jewish young men, the music was playing and the furnace was stoked and
available for anyone refusing to worship the golden idol. Perception of the reality was voiced by the
three men who faced squarely their fate even as they refused to bow in worship
to the idol. Shadrach,
Meshach and Abednego replied to the king, "O Nebuchadnezzar, we do not
need to defend ourselves before you in this matter. If we are thrown into the blazing furnace,
the God we serve is able to save us from it, and he will rescue us from your
hand, O king. But even if he does not,
we want you to know, O king, that we will not serve your gods or worship the image
of gold you have set up." (Daniel 3:16-18 NIV) The adjustment in thinking the three men made
to the reality of the furnace and the king’s fury and the idol was simple. Our hope is in God regardless of how things
turn and we will not worship idols. That
was the perception they all had of the situation they faced. This was how they looked at the idol and the
furnace and the angry king.
The third case study we shall examine took place in a
secret place where Jesus was with his disciples. He told them exactly what to expect
soon. And he said, "The Son of
Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, chief priests and
teachers of the law, and he must be killed and on the third day be raised to
life." (Luke 9: 22 NIV)
Now we must take these two parts of the reality separately. The first is that Jesus was telling the
disciples that the religious leaders were going to reject him outright and
because of this, He would have to be killed.
This had to be terribly disconcerting to them, perhaps even depressing. And of course that is what happened. Jesus was crucified and the disciples had to
face it. Reality was the end of dreams,
broken plans and the loss of a beloved friend.
All of this Jesus told them to expect and they had it. The death of Jesus came and it was real
dying. So what were they to do? What perception of this were they to form of
Jesus being dead? How were they to view
Christ crucified; which was very different than Christ healing and Christ
teaching and Christ eating with them and potentially taking over the nation of
Israel as her king?
Jesus told the Disciples two things. He would die and He would be raised from the dead. Those two were interconnected at every
point. The Disciples would have taken
these two parts as completely different matters, at least during the three days
when Jesus was dead but not raised from the dead. Since then though, the two are never separated
from one another. The crucified Christ
is reality and the raised Christ is reality and both determine perception in
every single circumstance. When the
Disciples saw a bright future filled with success and happiness, Jesus saw
Himself crucified. When the Disciples
saw all hope dashed and their lives crushed, Jesus saw Himself raised from the
dead. We can either perceive things as
the Disciples did or see all we face as Jesus saw things. What do I mean by that?
When Christ died, He took the Sin of mankind into
His body and it was crucified with Him when He died. The Apostle Paul tells us in his second
letter to the Corinthians that God made him who had no sin to be sin for us,
so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. (2 Corinthians
5:21 NIV) In Hebrews we find a similar
statement. But now he has appeared
once for all at the end of the ages to do away with sin by the sacrifice of
himself. (Hebrews 9:26 NIV) The
death of Christ did away with Sin because Sin died with Him when He died. When this happened we became free to see
things from God’s point of view. Before,
Sin corrupted our thinking and made us Satan’s fool, but, after the Cross when
we are made right with God through the cross of Christ Sin is worked out of us and
we can think with God’s mind and understand things. Sin does not direct our thinking! The Cross meant victory! The Disciples thought it was defeat. We with Sin see trials and troubles and
hardship and unfair circumstances. With
Christ and our Sin taken from us, we see God working everything out for our
good, we see our lives being put together in a perfect way. We see strength of character building and
holiness developing and love growing pure and true. With Sin out of the way, we can reinterpret
everything so we see things as they are and not as they seem.
With the Cross came resurrection. Peter says this of the resurrection’s effect
on us. Praise be to the God and
Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth
into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, (1
Peter 1:3-4 NIV) The Resurrection is the
most astounding event in the history of mankind because it was the power of God
revealed in Jesus Christ. If there is
one enemy of us all, if there is any unifying force that we cannot break, it is
death and with the Resurrection, death is broken and the operating system of
every one of us is hope. Hope rises
above every problem we face. If death is
a shattered enemy, then what is unemployment in God’s hands…what is
disease…what is divorce…what is infertility…what is injury or insult or
persecution…what is failure…what is disappointment…what is rejection when it is
in God’s hands? Resurrection is the
creator of hope at every point in life…hope is the bright dawn and it casts no
shadows because it is built by the Resurrection of Christ and that is
reality. When Jesus Christ rose from the
dead and He really did rise…over five hundred different people in many different
places saw Him alive…He made hope the reality for every single situation we
face. Hope is not in resurrection, it
rises from the Resurrection and we can hope and have real hope because hope is
not a dream of something that could happen.
It really is what is happening because the resurrection of Christ really
occurred in history and the resurrection is working through every circumstance we
encounter wherever we go and whatever we face.