Perspectives

I've just been watching that yogurt ad on the telly, where the pot of yogurt looks absolutely huge, as small people and their little machines stoke it full of goodness;  then at the last moment, a child and her mother run forward to the yogurt pot, and you realise it's all been a matter of cleverly applied perspective.

Perspective matters;  ask any artist.  Ask any politician . . . no, on second thoughts, it's rarely a good idea to ask questions of politicians . . . but nonetheless, the big statesmanlike decisions do require a keen grasp of perspective, a keen understanding of how things properly connect together and relate to each other.

And perspective matters in personal life.  There are times when, flushed with some small success, I feel all but invincible;  there are times when, after a slight or rejection, or when something I've tried has gone wrong, it's felt like the end of the world.  On both occasions there is a lack of perspective - the success wasn't that great (and usually the next thing after that feeling of euphoria is that something trips me up and I'm flat on my face again);  the failure wasn't that deep a pit - something of someone will help me rise up out of it again.

The sober reality, the true perspective, is this:  I may have done well, but that doesn't mean I shan't need the help and support of others next time;  or, alternatively, I may have done badly, but that doesn't mean that the help I need will be refused me;  all I have to do is ask.  As a Christian, I can express this as a faith message by saying that (1) there is never a point in my life in which I am so successful and so self-sufficient that I have no need of God, and (2) there is never a point in my life in which I am so wretched and degraded that God will withhold his love from me.  The single word that holds those two thoughts together is 'grace', the word Christians use when talking of God's free and unmerited love for us:  whether we're on an up in life, or whether we're on a down, God will never cease to deal graciously with us, as a Father to his child.