My alarm clock rang at an hour earlier than I would have liked, coercing me to wake up and start the day. Reluctantly, I began my morning routine: making coffee, eating breakfast and getting ready for the day. I went to put my contacts in, but they kept folding in half. After battling with those small, stubborn lenses for several minutes, my eyes were red from irritation and I conceded to wear my old glasses for the day. For the first few hours, I felt a little dizzy.  My eyes weren’t used to focusing through lenses a couple of inches away from my face. Gradually, though, my eyes adjusted, the dizziness subsided, and I went throughout the day largely unconscious of the fact that I was even wearing glasses.

A few days later, I was praying and reflecting back through my week and I realized that this simple and trivial moment is actually a powerful allegory for the way I view my life, the people around me, and the world. We often hear about how the perspectives we adopt, whether actively or passively, dictate the way we understand the world and directly motivates our actions. And so, we try to change our perspective. We buy a quinoa cookbook in hopes of eating better, start biking to work to become more environmentally conscious, or attend a small group to build better community at church all in hopes that our perspective will change. All of these things are good and valuable. Quinoa is delicious, biking is good for you and our planet, and small groups are where the local church really, truly happens. But they are all so basic, so perfunctory.

If we truly desire for our perspective to change, we must position our hearts in a way that welcomes the adoption of a new perspective and isn’t afraid to let go of the old one.  This is a process.This is an adjustment. This is a journey. It happens by placing the heart continuously and intentionally before the Word. Soaking the heart in truth allows for it to be cleaned, purified, and rejuvenated. Knowledge of our King, Father and Savior become pillars upon which life is lived. Heaven permeates the heart.

This sounds romantic and idyllic. It doesn’t seem to match up well with busy schedules, disagreements with a coworker, or calling for takeout after you accidentally burnt your healthy quinoa dinner. And a life with a heart set before the Word doesn’t correlate well with daily life and its thousand frustrations and difficulties, big and small. No, life spent with one’s heart before the Word transcends that reality. Viewing the world through the lens of the Word, the lens of heaven, means that we live life from those heavenly courts. Peace and stillness resonate within us as truth and love characterize perspective. And this type of life, Dear Saints, is entirely possible, feasible and attainable.

What awaits us as we individually and collectively look through heaven’s prism? What glory, beauty, hope, and love is waiting to be found?