God sees things we can’t see from our current place and position. Our perspective is grounded in reality, while God’s perspective is in light of eternity. His picture is a gazillion times larger than ours. We are limited to here and now and what we think we know. God actually knew every day of your life before your first breath, and how your breath would affect generations to come. You were perfectly placed in this moment in time for a destiny you cannot fathom, but God knows intimately.

This weekend I experienced the phenomenon of perspective. A seemingly magical shifting of space and time that changed reality.

For the first time in over 30 years, I returned to my childhood home. My brother and I walked the same woods we explored as kids. We found the spring where we spent every day of our summers playing. We stood in the location of the teepee we built and relived our greatest memories. My mama and I found the exact spot on our old 40 acres where we used to sunbathe, clothing optional. We stood in front of the first home my Daddy built us with his hands and marveled at his fingerprints still all over his creation that now outlives him. The barn where he taught me how to milk a cow was still there. The trees he planted are now stately fixtures in the front yard we all worked so hard in.

But space and time shifted yesterday when we walked down the rocky road Daddy made to the pond.

The pond was our family gathering place for 6 years of my childhood. Nightly, the 4 of us would pile on our old gray tractor, ride that bumpy steep road all the way down the mountain, and find the catfish gathered at the shoreline waiting for their feeding.

But my favorite part of the pond was the finish line it represented on my little white 50 Yamaha dirt bike. When I made it to the pond, I knew I had survived the long dangerous ride down the mountain to my waterside destination.

As a little girl, standing at the pond looking back up the hill through the trees, I could barely see our house. My brother and I felt as if we were explorers of a foreign land, far far far from home.

To my absolute shock and surprise, the walk down to the pond yesterday with my 44 year old legs was short. The view of the house from down below looked completely different with my 44 year old eyes. Standing at the pond I wasn’t far from home, the house was right there. I was just in the back yard, not some foreign land far far away.

And the climb to return, nothing. It wasn’t the hard climb I remember.

How had the landscape changed this much? What had happened to the mountain I remember from my childhood?

The mountain had not changed, I changed.

My perspective is now larger than the perspective I had as a 10 year old little girl. I now return having climbed real mountains high above the clouds, putting this little hill in it’s rightful category. The pond seemed so much smaller than I remember, because now I return having lived on the shores of the ocean. I’ve seen bigger things now.

If we haven’t seen more, experienced more, survived more, our perspective is limited and little things are blown out of proportion.

Could the very thing you’ve been so worried about simply be blown out of proportion? You’re looking at this problem with a zoom lens when there’s so much more to the picture you’re missing. Zoom out. Step back. Look around.

Life is still beautiful, isn’t it?

As you continue to live and experience life, you will begin to understand what God has always known, this isn’t nearly as big of a problem as you think. The mountain you face now will one day be an easy climb with the proper perspective.

Your life is currently growing. Your perspective is expanding. The life you live is getting bigger, and as it does, you begin to see things differently.

What a gift God gives us in this growing perspective.

Look back on the problems you once faced. You made it through, didn’t you? You survived. If you could go back, wouldn’t you tell yourself not to stress? Wouldn’t you point out the way is being made?

I remember being separated from my husband for the entire first year of our marriage, with only a 10 minute weekly phone call to get us through. Time seemed to move in slow motion as life as a newlywed wasn’t what I imagined it would be. And then, the wait was over and we were together again.

I think back on losing my job while I was pregnant. I stressed out so much I put me and my baby both at risk. It all worked out fine.

I think back to the battle of protecting our 2 little girls while we were adopting them from Mexico. With everything we owned sacrificed for the 7 attorneys it required, we were running out of resources. And then one day a judge declared the battle was over and the girls were forever ours.

Mountains. That’s what I faced and that’s what you faced.

But now on the other side, those mountains are viewed with a different perspective and suddenly they don’t seem so big. When we know the ending, the climb doesn’t seem so hard.

God knows your ending. The Lord has made a way for you. One day you will make it through your current struggle and you will look back and see a hill. Not a mountain, a hill. Not some far away distant land, but your backyard.

Isaiah 46: 8-10

Remember this, keep it in mind,
take it to heart, you rebels.
Remember the former things, those of long ago;
I am God, and there is no other;
I am God, and there is none like me.
I make known the end from the beginning,
from ancient times, what is still to come.
I say, ‘My purpose will stand,
and I will do all that I please.’

God sees what we cannot see. He knows what we do not know. He’s made a way where there was no way. And what he desires to be done, will be done.

Nothing will stop God’s power in your life. If he has a mountain for you to climb, you will be made into a climber. If he has a purpose for you to fulfill, you will be equipped to perfectly fulfill that purpose. If he has a job for you to do, you will be just the right one for that job.

Your stress and worry is not required here!

Over 30 years ago as a little girl exploring those distant lands, feeling so very far away at the bottom of the mountain looking back up to climb it, God knew he would bring me back there. He knew one day I would return to honor the work of my Daddy. And he knew when I did, I would see it differently.

And he knows one day you will see your mountain with seasoned eyes as well. You will return to this struggle too and see how it all worked out.

So today, let our faith lead us to a place of perspective to see things as God sees them. What God wants to do here will be done. He will have his way, and his way will be better than anything you could have imagined.