joy in a new perspective

I'm at the library, furiously getting this up for tomorrow for my spot on www.whateverhesays.blogspot.com, because our internet is down at home. Thank God for public computers. I am glad I am lightening up a little, so here is my set of words on a sunny day...

Seeing Things as We are

No it's not a typo. I really did intend to write, "Seeing things as WE are". I got that from this quote from The Talmud: "We don't see things as they are; we see things as we are." Well, so what, you say! Another clever quote. What does it have to do with you and me? Good thought. We need to examine and think about all the stuff that's thrown at us every day, in this culture. Things move so fast and we struggle to keep up. Today has been a slower day for me and I feel guilty. My inner gremlin is working on me telling me I am not doing what I should be doing today...I am wasting time and not accomplishing much. Those rule makers in my head can work overtime on a gorgeous sunny day like today. Why? Because I see things as I am - according to the voices in my head.

We talk a lot about inner gremlins in my Life Coach training program. For they are what keep the kinds of people who like to become life coaches from marketing themselves confidently, and most of all they are what keep the kind of people we expect to coach from making significant changes in their lives. They are what keep us all from moving ahead. And of course one of the reasons they do is because we somehow believe that these voices are interpreting reality as it really is to us, and that they know better than other parts of us, like our hearts, or our guts, know what is going on.

I suppose one of the gremlins I deal with almost on a daily basis is that I feel so stupid about not learning about those voices a long time ago, or not paying attention to what they really were. Why did it take me so long to learn what I have been learning? And then, when I turn away from that gremlin, turn down the volume on that voice, I hear that sweet voice of the Holy Spirit reminding me that at least I am learning this now, and that God can restore the years that the locust has eaten. He can make up for the time I've lost listening to the wrong voices, for the negative influences of my family of origin, or our culture, or imprisoning mindsets that keep me blocked and locked up within the expectations of others.

If we have the mind of Christ, if we have the Holy Spirit to comfort and guide us, then we can move toward a merger of seeing things as they are, and seeing things as we are. Of course we won't get a perfect fit...not until Heaven, but if we know for sure that our perspective in this life is shaped so much by who we are and where we have come from, then we are more able to tune in humbly to hear God's voice and take on His viewpoints and to remember that with Him, "All things are possible."