My son turned 5 this week.
One of my favorite things is to drag out the celebration over several days, rather than limiting it to one day. As we have been going about his celebration, I noticed that my perception has begun to shift. 4-years-old is closer to being a toddler whereas 5-years-old is closer to being a school-aged boy. It’s not that I thought of my son as a baby, but there was a shift in his stage-of-life and I was beginning to feel it too. My perception of him and of our context of life is changing.
Perception is a funny thing. It is limited by your senses. It is limited by your understanding. It is limited by your frame-of-reference or context.
And yet we so often live as if our perceptions are facts. Immutable, indisputable facts.
It’s almost as if we are floating along a river that has looked the same and acted the same for so long that we assume that this is the nature of the river. But then the river changes. The terrain is altered, the current shifts, and we find ourselves on the same, yet totally different river.
And when this new context of our river is fixed for long-enough and we adapt to this new nature of our river, we are back to thinking that now we really know it. When we thought we knew it before, it was just because we were younger and less wise. Now we know better.
We have fallen back into the trap of perception.
What happens when the nature of the river changes once again? Maybe even throws in a waterfall that we have to go over and be tumbled about in before we settle into a momentary serenity.
Can we find a way to allow our perceptions to be fixed enough that we can succeed in our current situation and still be flexible enough to adapt to the changes that are definitely coming?
I believe that answer lies in our limitedness.
In our limitations, we will have a difficult task of finding balance. Of grasping the context at-hand in such a way as to thrive in it. And then being prepared and flexible enough to shift with the changes that threaten our reality. And yet, how can we overcome limitations while still limited?
Now, any church-going believer knows that when a spiritual question is posed that you can answer “Jesus” and be right 99% of the time. This time is no different.
Jesus is what sets us free from our limitations while we are still stuck in our limitedness.
By giving us His Spirit to dwell within us, Jesus gave us that which enables us to reach beyond our humanness and not only grasp, but live by the Spirit.
In our humanness, there is a veil that rests over our perceptions and our understanding. “…whenever anyone turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away,” (2 Corinthians 3:17b, NIV).
In our humanness, we are only able to see, experience, and know what our humanness enables us to perceive. “The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned,” (1 Corinthians 2:14, NIV).
If we want to strike that balance between thriving in our current context and being ready to shift to the next without getting stuck or lost in the shift, we must cling to the Spirit. We must allow the Spirit to lead us because it is only with Him that our perceptions and understanding are opened up. The Spirit must navigate us through our river – all the aspects of the ever-changing nature of our river.
It is by the Spirit that the veil over our eyes is removed and we can see and know more.
It is by the Spirit that we are able to discern the things of God.
It is by the Spirit that I can shift from having a son closer to toddler-hood to a son closer to child-hood without getting lost or miserable in the process. I can see my son, my motherhood, our current and upcoming stages of life and know that we will not only thrive in this one, but transition to the next with an ease and grace that allows us to thrive there too.
Perception is a funny thing. Good thing we have the All-Powerful and All-Knowing at the helm.