Happy Grandparents month! In the month of March, we take the opportunity to honour all our LifeSpringers from the grandparent’s generation. LifeSpring first started meeting in 1981 and was planted by the grandparent’s generation. Today, we are blessed to have a church with many generations, from great-grandparents all the way down to infants. Personally, the grandparent generation has been a tremendous blessing to me in so many ways, starting with my own parents. Thank you grandparent generation for all that you’ve done and continue to do!
To start off our grandparent’s month, we had a chance to hear from Donna. Donna has such a unique and helpful perspective on the church, having walked with us for decades now. I think her message spoke to the core of some things that God is doing among us. At the heart of her message was the idea that God is calling us to “elevate” in four areas: to elevate our vision (see with the eyes of faith, not earthly eyes), elevate our service (to be the change we want to see), elevate our capacity (take on a new wineskin), and elevate our authority (be fruitful in new ways and new areas).
The idea of elevating our vision caught my attention. One person in the Bible who I believe lived with a truly elevated vision was Paul. In 2 Corinthians 1:6-7, Paul says,
If we are distressed, it is for your comfort and salvation; if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which produces in you patient endurance of the same sufferings we suffer. And our hope for you is firm, because we know that just as you share in our sufferings, so also you share in our comfort.
This is such a unique approach to the topic of stress and challenges. Something we know about Paul’s life is that he faced immense amounts of distress. Many of the letters he wrote that became a part of the New Testament were written while he was in prison. During one of his missionary trips, he travelled as a prisoner. Yet in a nutshell he says about his suffering that, “If I suffer, it’s for your salvation, if I’m comforted, it’s for your sake.” Paul was not thinking about himself during his challenges, he was thinking about how his challenges might help others. That’s a truly elevated vision!
As I drive on the roads these days, one of my pet peeves is people crossing the road while they are staring at their phones. The road is full of hazards and dangers. But at times, people can be so distracted by their phones that they fail to see what is happening around them. People can become so caught up with what is in their hands that they forget where they are.
Yet we can sometimes live the same way. We can be so focused on what is directly in front of us–our stresses, our family, our job, our finances–that we can lack vision. We can become so locked in to the concerns that are right in front of us that we forget that God has called us to lift up our eyes and to see what He is doing.
In this season, God is calling us to elevate our vision. He is calling us to look beyond the concerns that are directly in front of us and to see the world around us. And the reason is because this is the world that God has called us to love and serve.
LifeSpring, what are some ways that God is calling you to elevate your vision? Are there ways that God is calling you to look beyond your immediate concerns, to see what He is doing? I pray that we would live with a sense of vision that goes beyond our immediate needs, to see what God is doing beyond our personal concerns.