Sunday, June 26, 2016

Perception

Perception
June 27, 2016
Psalm 10:1  "Why, Lord, do you stand far off?  Why do you hide yourself in times of trouble?"

We often question the Lord, wondering why He does certain things and doesn't do certain things.  We wonder why He allows this current scenario to happen or that circumstance to occur.  But we must be certain we are correct in our wondering, making sure we are not accusatory in our questioning.  Too often our perception of the Lord and what we perceive Him to be doing is not actually what He is doing.  Case and point, the psalmist questions why the Lord was so far away from the frustrating situation, why the Lord was hiding Himself.  The psalmist was actually accusing the Lord falsely in his discourse.

If we read throughout Scripture, we understand the Lord will never leave us or forsake us.  The Lord will never abandon us and in fact, we cannot even hide from Him.  The Lord sees our comings and goings, the Lord is ever and always on His throne, the Lord maintains His sovereignty at all times, and no one is beyond His reach.  Our God is big and powerful.  He sees all and has never been chased or run out by His enemies.  But the psalmist slightly accuses the Lord of being far away, almost purposely distancing Himself.  The psalmist accuses the Lord of avoiding the situation by hiding.  There is nothing to suggest the Lord has ever been in hiding or purposely far away from us.  This dichotomy of the situation leaves us to believe the psalmist was incorrect in his perception of the Lord.  The psalmist spoke as if he had an accurate understanding of the situation.  He did not.  What he should have said was, "why do you FEEL so far away and why does it SEEM as if you are hiding."

The psalmist's perception was off and invalid, which led him to a misunderstanding of the situation and consequently blaming the Lord for something He wasn't doing.  But you and I have never blamed the Lord for something the Lord didn't do.  Clearly this is isolated to one occurrence in Scripture, just one time in history.  Or maybe it has happened more than once?  Maybe you and I have an incorrect understanding, perception, of what the Lord is doing and we project that onto the Lord as fact?  Maybe we end up accusing the Lord falsely, which leads to blame, which leads to frustration and anger, which leads to bitterness.  While the Lord has shoulders big enough to handle our misperception, the one who ends up getting hurt is you and me.  We accuse the Lord falsely, thinking it reality, then form an opinion of the Lord and His perceived actions.  We then hold it against Him.  Our faulty perception of the Lord ends up hurting our own lives.

To better handle the situation, the psalmist should have gone one step further and said, " Why does it FEEL as if you are so far off, but nonetheless, I will submit to your sovereignty in this."  Then and only then would his thinking and handling of the scenario been correct.  It is a stance of recognizing we do not have all the facts and allowing the Lord to perform His job as He sees most appropriate.  Wow, how hard is that?  Extremely.  Our rationality of the situation is at its highest in that moment for our finite brains, then we reason there must be no other logical explanation.  This is the trap that catches us every time.  Compared to the Lord's understanding, you and I are but a goldfish, bumping against the glass wall of our small fish-tank perception.  It's time to submit to the Lord's sovereignty and refuse to believe the validity of your perception of this situation.  That is the only way you will successfully wrestle through what is going on in your life.

Don't take my word for it; look it up:  2 Psalm 139:7, Prov 16:1-4, Jer 23:24, Heb 4:13

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