Flying Upside Down

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Often I have the wrong perspective on life. I wonder why Kristina hasn't done some specific chore, when I ought to be realizing how little I have done. I feel how good I am doing, but only because I have forgotten all that I have forgotten and left undone. I search for something thinking I know where it is only to find that if I had instead searched with eyes open I would have found it much sooner (usually plainly visible right next to where I thought it should be, and yet I miss it).

Sometimes, though, I think that I don't just have the wrong perspective on life. I am not just looking at things a little bit off center. I am actually flying upside-down through life, and so I am looking at everything wrong. Down is up and up is down and I wonder why things don't work quite the way they are supposed to. 

Christopher Wright in The Mission of God, same book as yesterday, points out ways in which reading the bible with the mission of God in mind turns our perspective ride-side up again. I wanted to share some of them:

"We ask, 'where does God fit into the story of my life?' when the real question is where does my life fit into this great story of God's mission.
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We talk about the problems of 'applying the bible to our lives'... what would it mean to apply our lives to the bible instead...?
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We wonder whether and how the care of creation, for example, might fit into our concept and practice of mission, when this Story challenges us to ask whether our lives, lived on God's earth and under God's gaze, are aligned with, or horrendously misaligned with, God's mission that stretches from creation to cosmic transformation and the arrival of a new heaven and new earth. 

We argue about what can legitimately be included in the mission God expects from the church, when we should ask what kidn of church God expects for his mission in all its comprehensive fullness.

I may wonder what kind of mission God has for me, when I should ask what kind of me God wants for his mission." (Christopher Wright, Mission of God. 533-534)


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