By Paul Johnson

I am short-sighted.  It comes with being human.  Simply acknowledging that is a relief to me.

God sees the BIG picture.  I mean the REALLY BIG picture.  He knows all things – the past, all the intricacies of the present – including everyone’s thoughts (Psalm 94:11) – and He knows what the future holds (Psalm 139:16).  God is not limited like I am; He’s not simply someone with perfected human qualities.  He’s GOD.  Acknowledging that is a relief, too.

When I am in the midst of life, I am operating with a pretty biased perspective of the present and a subjective interpretation of my past.  So when I do something stupid, like sin, I sometimes get so entrenched in the moment that I lose the bigger perspective altogether.  I forget what God has told me.  I forget my identity and His.

The first time I watched the movie The Sixth Sense, I was caught off guard by the ending.  I had to watch it again.  I am going to share the story with you – and yes I am going to ruin the ending (it’s been out since 1999, plenty of time for you to have rented it).

Bruce Willis plays Dr. Malcolm Crowe, a child psychologist who, after getting shot in the beginning of the movie, seems to have his life falling apart.  He meets a little boy, Cole Sear (played by Haley Joel Osment), who is deeply disturbed because he claims he can see dead people.  Malcolm, disbelieving at first, comes to realize that Cole is not lying, and helps Cole to overcome the fear associated with this “sense.”  The biggest revelation, though, is at the end of the movie, when we find out that Malcolm is dead.  In fact he died at the beginning of the movie from the gunshot.  Cole can see him because he is dead.  Aagghh.

Watching the movie a second time not only made some pieces of the plot make sense, but it allowed me a view from a totally different perspective.  It made a HUGE difference when I watched it knowing the end already.

God says in Isaiah 46:10 “I make known the end from the beginning, from ancient times what is still to come.”  Wow!  God’s perspective of life – real life – is ALWAYS like that.  He has “complete” knowledge.  I believe that it is with this complete knowledge – this Big Picture – that God is able to call us “righteous” and believe it.  The Father sees ALL our days through the lens of His Son on the cross.

I believe that when I die, I will live eternally in a heavenly state of being where there is no sin anymore.  No falling short of God’s Glory, just the reveling in and appreciation of His Holiness.

In the past, when I have tried to look at life through God’s perspective, I have always thought about the points on the timeline between my birth (or perhaps my conception… which I don’t really want to dwell on) and my death (or perhaps the point where I stand before God in judgment.)  I know that there are, and will be, missed opportunities in my life.  I know that I am still in the process of being sanctified, and that I will have need of renovation throughout all my days here on earth.  Within that timeline, I will never be perfected.

God is not bound by that timeline.

Perhaps when He thinks of me and when He thinks of you, in His complete knowledge of who we are, He sees tens of thousands of years beyond our death.  He is able to relate to me in the light of eternity and call me friend, holy, righteous, and son from the BIG picture.  My incorruptible years are an inseparable part of His picture. Knowing the end from the beginning, His perspective is true.

We will never have that perspective.  It is a God quality.  Yet we can believe.  We can trust that what He says about us is True.  We can live our lives boldly secure in His love for us.

Paul Johnson is Community Life Pastor at Lakewood Free Church in Brainerd, MN.  Paul spent 18 years working for LFL’s sister organization, Timber Bay, and 2 years as an LFL staff.

How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! (1 John 3:1) 

God calls us His children.  I think the truth and severity of this concept has been largely lost to Christians over the age of six.  I remember hearing it in Sunday school when I was a little kid, but I never made too much of it.  It was only logical.  After all, I was a child, and according to my theological understanding, God owned everything, so it only made sense that I was His child.  About the time I was nine, like most boys my age I was intent on being a big kid, and got offended at the very thought of being called a child.  So my Sunday School teacher stopped telling me that I was God’s child and mostly just tried to keep my attention with flannel graphs about Samson killing Philistines.

Of course, growing up does not make you any less of God’s child, and the more you understand what it means to be a child of God, the better you will know yourself, and understand your role in the world.  In most cultures, your father is your source of identity. How many boring biblical genealogies have you seen that read like this? Naggai was son of Maath.  Maath was son of Mattathias.  Mattathias was son of…you get the point. This sounds fairly archaic, but we still see this pattern in many of the surnames we use today.  How many Petersons or Thomsons do you know?  Despite its simple practicality, this method could be the closest we will ever come to actually understanding someone.     

It is impossible to truly capture the essence of a human, to know and understand its being.  This difficulty is not just about understanding others; it also applies to the self.  Young men are especially indicative of this struggle—always probing and searching, they need to know who they are, what they are made of.  This creates all sorts of problems, especially in the era of the extreme makeover.  Much youth is wasted by boys and girls trying to figure out who they are.  This quest takes them in and out of cliques, and follows them to college and adult life.  It drives careers and dictates families. Then, if the question if a satisfactory answer was ever was given in the first place, the question is drug up again by a midlife crisis. 

We live in a culture of identity crises which is only prolonged and further complicated by the fact that society tells us that we can reinvent ourselves as many times as Madonna, and that our identity can be purchased with a new pair of shoes or an expensive sports car.

Knowing who your father is helps make sense of your life, past, present and future, it illuminates your history and directs where you go.  The son inherits the father’s physical traits: eyes, laugh, build and also his personality traits, sense of humor, intelligence, work ethic, etc.  Also, from the father, or father figure, young men are instructed and shown what it means to be a man.  They learn how to swing a baseball bat, tie a fisherman’s knot, and often they also learn a trade.  Fathers teach their sons the principles and values which dictate the decisions they make. It is from the father that a son learns who he is and understands his place in the story of life.   

Fathers have tremendous authority in the lives of their children.  This is undoubtedly why they are also able to inflict wounds.  I don’t know a single man who has not been in some way wounded by his father.  Even good fathers, who have great relationships with their sons leave wounds of some sort—questions they failed to answer, doubts they unknowingly affirmed, fears they accidentally caused.  It is the nature of the position.  Fathers have the ability to name and define their sons, but the power is too great to wield, and boys are left feeling incomplete, if not damaged by their fathers. 

But knowing your earthly father is only a small pieced to the puzzle of self.  If you really want to know yourself, you also need to understand who your heavenly father is.  After all, just like your earthly father, you bare His traits as well.  You were created in His image, alikeness much truer than physical features alone.  And as His child, His spirit dwells in you, a spirit which trumps personality, and is able to correct and perfect personality traits given by your earthly father.  For instance, my dad has a bit of a temper, and I often find myself loosing mine in much the same way as he can.  Fortunately for both of us, God’s spirit is also inside of us, the fruit of which is among other things, patience and self control.    

God’s desire is for us to know that we are His children—His boys and His girls.  He loves his children with the fiercest kind of love; a love so powerful and so perfect that when you are truly resting in it, there is no room for fear.  God’s love is so strong, and his authority so complete that it He is able heal wounds left by our earthly fathers, and answer the questions that have crippled us.  Those who never knew their fathers can still know that they are the beloved son of the King of Kings.  

God also instructs His sons, and tells them what they should do and how they should act.  His children become coheirs with Christ, to the Kingdom that He established, and as such, we have tremendous authority and tremendous responsibility to continue to build His Kingdom.

Jesus told his disciples that they should have faith like little children.  One thing that strikes me about little boys is the way they look up to their fathers.  A boy’s Dad is his hero: he can handle any situation and beat up any other kid’s dad.  A father is a source of pride, security and ultimately identity for a young boy.  And knowing who our heavenly father is can do the same for us if we are willing to become children again.