How do you see things?

There was a rich man who dressed in purple garments and fine linen and dined sumptuously each day. And lying at his gate was a poor man named Lazarus, covered with sores, who would gladly have eaten his fill of the scrapes that fell from the rich man’s table. Dogs even used to come and lick his sores. (Lk 16:19-31)

By Yemti Harry Ndienla

It’s the angle. For example, a football game on TV. You’d swear, watching the replay from one angle that the player stepped out of bounds. But then the camera shows two more replays from different angles and it’s clear as can be that he stayed in bounds. In this parable, the rich man and the poor man are looking at life from two different angles. The rich man is on the inside looking out, at the top looking down. Lazarus is on the outside looking in, at the bottom looking up. Which angle gives the truer picture? Jesus doesn’t leave us without an answer. Both men died and the rich man realized he had a distorted picture. The angle made all the difference. So much so that the rich man wants to return to earth and tell his brothers.

How do I try to make sure that I see things the way they really are? One way is, in every situation, to ask myself, “How does God see this?” Pick a situation or two in your life right now, and ask the Lord how he sees it. He has the best angle of all.
Jesus told this parable: “Two people went up to the temple area to pray; one was a Pharisee and the other was a tax collector. The Pharisee took up his position and spoke this prayer to himself, ‘O God, I thank you that I am not like rest of humanity – greedy, dishonest, adulterous – or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week, and I pay tithes on my whole income.’ But the tax collector stood off at a distance and would not even raise his eyes to heaven but beat his breast and praye. ‘O God be merciful to me a sinner.” Lk18:9 – 14.

The problem with the Pharisee is not that fasting and giving tithes are themselves wrong. The problem is that he’s righteous. There’s difference between being right and being righteous. To be righteous (even when I’m right) is to think that the correctness is all my own doing – to forget how I got there (by God’s grace) – and to have a better-than-thou attitude toward those who are not “correct”.
There’s also a difference between being right and being good. I can use my rightness in a mean-spirited way toward others. There is a simple formula that can be very helpful: Truth + Love. You have to have both. Truth without love can be mean. Love without truth can take you in wrong directions.

Truth + Love. I need to give that some thought.