The Grand Canyon Perspective

Wow! It’s been a very very long time since I last got on this ‘write’ page. It’s like walking into your room after 4 years away in college( I am not there yet. Let’s slow down!)

Anyway, after about 20 reminders yelling at me to find the time to write a post about something in the sticky notes flying  on my bedroom wall and a 4 mile walk back to my house because I got on the wrong bus, I thought I should get back to this.

Today, I am going to talk to you guys about how we often appreciate beauty. Many of you who have been reading my blogs know how I like to talk about the ‘human perspective’. This is about how we look at life.

I learned earlier today that life is not a destination, it is a journey. The very theory that life is going to turn into this wonderful picture while you’re still alive and walking on this earth is what usually drives us. But the truth is that there is always something more in life. The reason why many people often feel depressed when they have everything is because they thought that once you ‘have everything’, you become that full picture that brings ultimate satisfaction. When the realisation strikes on how the picture needs a lot more strokes, you break down and with that breakdown, comes the increased attention to the missing and the lost.

Now, let me take you to your backyard garden or your city park. You are out there enjoying the wind on your face, that great big powerful force minimised to that luxurious breeze, you are breathing in the fresh air and you are enjoying the magnificent flowers. God was extremely gracious to us in making flowers. They are really something ‘extra’ like the great Sherlock Holmes said. He wants us to live life to the full and that is why he came down himself. The very beauty in the flower, I believe, lies in many things. But today, I would like to take you to the ‘smallness’ of a flower. When you look at a flower you get to see the entire thing. You can see everything from the stalk to the edges of the petals and it amazes you beyond words how this amazing picture that produces great satisfaction could be packed into something so small.

Our appreciation of beauty is in many situations, based on our visual reach. Imagine you are at the Grand Canyon. You are there in you taxi and your watching it from a kilometre distance. Now, I want you to turn into that 90s movie director who zooms the camera in like crazy. You are zooming in and  zooming in until you reach that small blurred patch of orange rock. Imagine all you could see was that small bit of rock, that bit you see when you press your face against the Grand Canyon. Not very interesting. Right? But now zoom back out. You are back to your spot and you get to see the entire thing and you just love it.

We want ‘complete’ to think about ‘perfect‘, That’s just how the human mind works.

Today, are we going after that final picture?

The Grand Canyon is amazing and will stay amazing, whether or not you look at it from your taxi or from a millimetre distance. The resources for the making of that final picture we look for has been given by God to us. They may not be materialising into a great picture today, but they are still amazing because they are what creates the final picture in the future. Is it not time yet for us to stop striving for the final picture and start thinking about what we want our life to look like today? Because that picture in the end will be great only if you start thinking about life as a journey, a mix of many todays filled with great potential, todays that are steps away from the small picture that lets us see more of what God has in store for us.

Now, I am going to talk about how we want our life to look like.

As a Christian, I want my life to look like what God wants it to look like, because I believe that none of my plans or standards of success will ever match His.

Be what God wants you to be today. Don’t worry about the final picture. The real beauty does not lie in the results but it lies in who you are, in the resources that God has given you. As long as you breath, you can believe in a tomorrow. And if today does not work out, tomorrow is still there for you. Today, may be like you pressing your face on the Grand Canyon. But with every today, considering you are true to yourself and to God, you will be seeing more of the Grand Canyon and finally somebody else is going to see it from a taxi on their journey and get inspired by it!