PASTOR DAVE’S MUSINGS FROM THE HEARTLAND

January 11, 2023

A LARGER PERSPECTIVE

New Year’s Eve morning we had a slight crisis at the Hogsett household: I could not find our parking pass for the Purdue women’s basketball games.  The women were playing at 4:00 P.M. and I needed it so Diane and I would not have to look for a parking space off campus.  The pass was not in the envelope where I kept the tickets.  Where was it?

I enlarged my perspective to include all of the possible places I might have left it: the car, on my desk, loose in the drawer where I keep the tickets, or several other places.  No ticket.  I had to keep expanding my perspective of possible places to look.

Thinking back over the last several weeks I remember that I had done some housekeeping to get ready for 2020.  One of items that I had thrown in the trash was an envelope for tickets from a previous year.   The envelope where I keep my tickets and parking pass and the envelope I discarded were identical.  Could I have put the pass in the wrong envelope?

If you would have passed my home Tuesday morning, December 31, you might have caught me going through the recyclable bin out on the street in front of the house.  Fortunately, it had not been picked up yet.  Near the bottom of the bin I found the discarded envelope.  When I looked inside, no parking pass.  However, when I continued to dig in the same area the pass appeared.  My existence was filled with joy and happiness.

Enlarging my perspective for where to search for the missing pass had two unintended consequences.  As one gets older there is always the fear that one might be “losing it.”  My search for the missing pass was an affirmation that I was still capable of critical thinking and I could recall with some clarity past events.  Secondly, it made me feel a little better that my recyclables were now only being picked up every other week.  If I were still on the old schedule of once a week, the parking pass would have been long gone since it was at the bottom of the bin.

In the sixth chapter of Judges the Israelites were under attack from the Midianites.  The Lord called Gideon to banish the oppressors.  As when previously Israel had found itself under attack and the Lord raised up a Judge, Gideon called the tribes to battle and enlisted an army to do battle with the invaders.  However, the Lord had a different plan.

Gideon needed to enlarge his perspective.  Even though it was counterintuitive, the first thing he needed to do was to reduce his forces to a mere three hundred men.  Next rather than using weapons of war, the Lord told Gideon to use torches and trumpets.  Finally, rather than attacking directly with weapons of war they should attack at night using psychological warfare to defeat the enemy.

I was able to find my missing parking pass when I enlarged my perspective of possible places it might have gone.  Gideon was able to defeat the Midianites when the Lord enlarged his perspective about how to defeat the enemy.   In both cases the expanding of possibilities brought joy and happiness.  In this coming year may you enlarge your perspective on life and its possibilities as you face problems and new situations that you might experience joy and happiness!

This article was originally published January 12, 2020.