Viewing God

Perspective does not change essence; rather it changes the depth of the perspective.

Humans will have problems with this phrase. How do I know they will have problems? There are two reasons: either they will attribute wrong definitions to the words, or they will achieve the right definitions and disagree with the truth encapsulated in the statement. To save from the first, I will endeavor to define the statement into understandable references.

What do I mean by perspective? I mean outlook. How one looks at something. If someone said, “You just have wrong perspective,” you would take offence, not from the fact that he called you wrong, but the fact that he doesn’t view your perspective in the way you do. He doesn’t look at it the way you would, did, or could.

What do I mean by essence? I’ll degrade for the benefit of arriving at the same conclusion in the end. I, along with many readers, have washed my hair with a shampoo that claims to be made up entirely of herbs. Herbal Essence. You are hopefully not cringing in disgust, wondering how I could clean my scalp with herbs, are you? Nor are you thanking your lucky stars that I’m not sitting next to you, smelling of stomach-turning herbs. No. All essence means in the shampoo is that the fundamental nature of the liquid is one of healthy, benefiting herbs. Essence: the fundamental nature.

What do I mean by depth? Think of a swimming pool (this is NOT going to be a discussion on benefits versus hindrances of swimming. Just follow my logic here, please!) Imagine with me the largest pool in the world, consisting of extensive areas of play for all ages. Olympic size lap swim for the proficient swimmers. Tens of hundreds of slides of all shapes and sizes. Water toys that all children would drool over. And imagine on top of this, mothers, that it was pre-supervised, a free – babysitting service, prepared with references from extensively important insurance companies, guarantying the safety of your children. What would you say if as you were walking through the facilities you saw that the “kiddy pool” had a depth measurement of ten, not feet, but yards? You would say, “I don’t care what references there are, it cannot POSSIBLY be safe for my two year old to be playing in that large amount of water.” Why? Because you didn’t learn your conversion factors in elementary school and have a personal grudge against the unit of measurement? No! Because the amount of water compared to your two year old is entirely un-proportional. You knew it was TOO deep. That’s what I mean by depth.

Now, although I am sure I have lost some of you, I wish to move on. Let me rephrase the previous phrase in different, but equal terms.

How a human views the fundamental nature of something does not change that fundamental nature, but rather changes the amount that is allotted to be understood from that perspective.

I have probably succeeded in confusing you, because, as I write this, I agree that the first statement is less confusing than the latter; but, don’t get lost. Follow me with this one.

In Israel, there are some roofs that are flat. Like flat. (Must I define this too?) With no angles of inclination or declination. Flat. Picture yourself lying flat (the SAME definition) on the roof. Those of the readers who value their dignity, they might want to imagine someone else lying flat on the flat roof in Jerusalem. Anyway… here’s where the dignity goes out the window. Now, consider that you stick your neck off the balcony while lying flat on the flat roof in Israel, creating a ninety degree angle with the wall that extends to the ground. This is important, so stay with me.
Moving on… as you stare down toward the ground with embarrassment reddening your cheeks, you notice something right beneath you. As an American, you KNOW that you KNOW that you KNOW what you are looking at. The greatest comfort food: a Hershey chocolate bar.

Now, speaking entirely from what you see, all you see is the chocolate bar. It looks great. But, you begin to wonder, what size is this WONDERFUL treat? All you can see is the fact that it IS a chocolate bar. You know the dimensions of it – it is so long by so wide. Yet, as your stomach begins to growl, you wonder what the volume is? Or, how THICK is it? From this perspective, thickness cannot be measured. Does that mean it really IS as flat as it looks to be?

Your curiosity is screaming. It is then that you notice a ladder extending down the wall. You climb down the first two rungs, look down, and… what? You see that the candy bar isn't flat, but has a thickness to it

It has changed with your perspective. Right? Think about it. Did it CHANGE its thickness because your perspective moved? Get real! No! Did the fact that it is a chocolate bar change because your view changed? No! Your perception of the depth of the chocolate bar changed, not the fundamental nature of the chocolate bar.

Right now, one or both of two things are happening. Your stomach is GROWLING yearning for that chocolate bar. Or, you are scratching your head and asking, “Thanks for the geometry lesson, but what on earth does this have to do with LIFE?” Well….

The mind of finite man as he views God from the roof takes into account all he can see. But, when we climb down the ladder and see that there is more than what we originally saw, has God changed? No. Perspective does not change essence, but rather changes the depth. At salvation, we were looking down from the roof so to speak. God, from our point of view, was. He existed, and interacted with us to the extent that we realized our need for salvation. But, as we begin to build a relationship with Him, we realize that there is more to God than just the aerial view. He is God. But there is SO much we didn’t understand. Does that mean he is MORE than He was in the past? Perspective does not change the essence. He is still the same he was before, but now we are beginning to see THE EXTENT that He is.

Taking it a step further. Did the chocolate bar CHANGE as we stepped down the ladder? Our perspective, or the place from where we viewed the chocolate bar, changed, but the chocolate bar didn’t grow thicker as we gradually walked down the ladder. It was as it was. God doesn’t change as our relationship with Him expands. He was as He was. He is as He is. Our perspective did the changing, not God.

Further. Did the ingredients of the chocolate bar change as we walked down the ladder? Do the attributes of God change as we grow in our relationship with Him? Is this making sense to you?

I can hear screaming! “Compare God to a chocolate bar? How sacrilegious! Shame on you.” I want to make one thing QUITE clear. I am not COMPARING GOD to a chocolate bar, but rather using it as a metaphor (and my English teacher would supplement the RIGHT literary term here ) God supplied human beings with finite minds, with the ability to only think in what WE can understand or what has been revealed to us. Our finite minds cannot wrap itself around the fact that God is not encapsulated in a body like ours, nor is He just a ghost that walks through walls like a white sheet. But yet God says we, man, are made in “the image of God.” God compares HIMSELF in terms of His creation, so that we might be able to grasp just a sliver of the concept.

Here is something interesting. Suppose someone, thinking that God wanted him to go to a particular college, enrolled, packed up, moved many miles from home, and settled into college life. After a short time, he realized that he had mistaken what God had wanted for him, and spent the rest of the semester with this knowledge. God subjected His perfect will to the imperfect thinking of His creation. Doesn’t this fact limit God’s working in our lives? God limited himself to this imperfect thing He created. But God can't be limited, right? But He limited. Thus contradicting the very NATURE of God. Right? Stepping away from this “problem,” I would like to take another step in our illustration. Straining from your perch on the third or fourth rung down, your fingernails are able to pick up a sliver of chocolate, which you immediately drop onto your tongue. Picked up by your taste buds, the bitter taste of dark chocolate invades your senses. With this, you make the ASSUMPTION that the chocolate bar is, in its entirety, dark chocolate. But, un-known to your “finite” mind, the bar is filled with syrup, white-chocolate, and milk chocolate throughout its entirety. Does your assumption that it is dark chocolate all the way through change the fact that it’s not? Your THOUGHT matters nothing in the COMPOSITION of the chocolate bar. Just as our THOUGHTS about God CHANGE nothing in the very Being that God is. We make mistakes – he misread the will of God – does that mean that God’s will for that semester of college was WRONG? Absolutely NOT!

In conclusion, I’ll restate the facts.
1. As we grow closer to God, He doesn’t change, our PERSPECTIVE does.
2. As we grow closer to God, He is still the same He as He was before – we just begin to see more of the picture.
3. The character of God remains the same, no matter how we view Him.