In my elementary school, I share a classroom with my friend and colleague, Laura. We've worked together for 8 years now and have shared three different rooms in our building during that time. Our working and teaching styles complement each other, and we've cooperated very well over the years in designing our schedules and setting up our various classrooms in an order that works for both of us.
Teaching in the time of COVID- 19 looks very different than what we've ever done before. With the changes in our teaching situations, we decided that we needed an adjustment in our room arrangement. Laura teaches some groups that needed to have more room between their chairs for proper social distancing, so we've adapted how we had divided our space to give her that additional room. A free-standing partition wall that we've used for several years was turned diagonally in the room and it changed the look of the entire space. Very little of the furniture on my side of the room was moved, but the whole space looks different. Even though there is probably a little less square footage there than before, it looks bigger and more open. Same room - a different perspective.
This experience made me think about all the situations in our lives that can look a certain way to us, but we have the freedom in Christ to look at them from a different perspective. We can endeavor to see circumstances the way God sees them.
The apostle Paul is a stellar example of this way of viewing life. He saw shipwreck, beatings, danger, and imprisonment as a means to an end - the spreading of the gospel throughout the world. He looked beyond his current circumstances and saw God working behind the scenes to bring glory to Himself. In Philippians 4:11, Paul writes, "Not that I speak in regard to need, for I have learned in whatever state I am, to be content". He was able to look beyond the "room " of his situation and see a different perspective than others who might have experienced similar hardships.
In the Old Testament, Joseph went from being a favored son to a slave to a trusted servant to a prisoner before being raised up to become second in command to only Pharoah himself. The Bible doesn't tell us whether he held on to his boyhood dreams and expected release from prison, but it does tell us that he experienced favor in the midst of the worst situation of his life. He continued to operate in the gifts God had given him, even in a jail cell. He saw a perspective that didn't negate his previous walk with God, even though he didn't know exactly how it would all work out.
I can't count the number of times I've heard the words "unprecedented situation" in the year 2020, but I know that all of us have been touched in some way by either bewilderment, distrust, inconvenience, financial distress, illness, grief, or frustration. This room that we are in has changed. Life is not the same as it once was, and what we first thought might be a temporary rearrangement of our lives is feeling more permanent, even though we still hope and pray for a lifting of this burden in all of our lives.
But what if in the midst of all this, we look at it from a different perspective? Same situation; different view? What if we looked upon this time as a season for the church to shine like never before? What if we took the time spent at home when other places are closed to us, and we used it to seek God with a renewed enthusiasm and intensity? What if we use the gifts that God has imparted to us, even in a less than ideal situation?
Give those questions some thought and prayer this week and ask God to help you see the potential He sees in the problems in your life. Ask Him to alter your perspective so that instead of seeing what you've lost, you can see where He is taking you next. His view is far superior and He knows exactly where He wants you to go.
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