Have you ever marveled at the difference between biological siblings?  I am always amazed by the differences that can exist between children that all came from the mixing of the same two strands of DNA.  My own children have many similarities, but their differences are also numerous. Two prefer minty toothpaste; one wants strawberry. One only wants honey on his peanut butter sandwiches, while his sisters prefer jelly.  One loves to draw and write; the others would rather be running and tackling. One even dislikes donuts (how that could be is a genetic abnormality if I’ve ever seen one), while the other two would complete any task or check off any chore list for the reward of the sugary treat.  And even between the two donut lovers, there lies a disagreement - sprinkled or jelly filled? They are so different. The differences between my own siblings and I are huge. Our personalities, hobbies, preferences, and lives have turned out to be radically different from one another.  We were all made, raised, and nurtured by the same two parents and yet - we are different.

But even these differences are nothing compared to the differences in viewpoints, opinions, reactions, and emotions that come out of different people who are reading, watching, or experiencing the exact same thing.  You, like me, have probably seen the same news article posted several times in your Facebook news feed with totally opposite reactions expressed. Social media gets so strange during an election season. You find out how varied your friends’ opinions and viewpoints are when everyone begins vehemently expressing agreement or disagreement in a public forum.  

People are different.  

Families are different.  

Churches are different.  

Christians are different.  

Has it bothered you why people who share the same faith would have such different viewpoints?  How could we see things so differently and react so opposite from one another? How could one of my children love jelly donuts?  I don’t get it! But not as much as I don’t get the one who won’t eat them at all…

Sometimes our differences are simply preferences and opinions.  Often they are born of our varied stories, with the different experiences of our lives informing our differing viewpoints.  Most often, I believe, our differing opinions of a single situation are fueled by our perspective. The lens through which we view something determines everything about what we see.  This is why two people can see the same thing in two totally different ways - they are looking at it through different lenses.  Their eyes are different, so their vision is different. I believe the most common differing perspectives are a human perspective and a spiritual perspective.  

In the book of Numbers, we see 12 spies sent into what we refer to as “the Promised Land”.  Moses sends these 12 men (each a chief from one of the tribes) into the land with these instructions:

“Go up into the Negev and go up into the hill country, and see what the land is, and whether the people who dwell in it are strong or weak, whether the are few or many, and whether the land that they dwell in is good or bad, and whether the cities they dwell in are camps or strongholds, and whether the land is rich or poor, and whether there are trees in it or not.”  - Numbers 13:17-20

Please notice - the task Moses gave them was not a remarkably spiritual one.  He needed some questions answered. Are there lots of people? Tents or stones walls?  Trees or no trees? He sent these 12 men to gather intel. But each of them did more than that.  Each of the men looked at the practical answers to these questions and interpreted them in different ways.  The men came back bearing two wildly different opinions. Ten of the men looked through human eyes. Only two saw the practical answers to these questions from a spiritual perspective.  Listen to their responses:

“‘We came to the land to which you sent us.  It flows with milk and honey, and this is its fruit. However, the people who dwell in the land are strong, and the cities are fortified and very large...But Caleb quieted the people before Moses and said, ‘Let us go up at once and occupy it, for we are well able to overcome it.’ Then the men who had gone up with him said, ‘We are not able to go up against the people, for they are stronger than we are.’ So they brought to the people of Israel a bad report...And Joshua the son of Nun and Caleb the son of Jephunneh, who were among those who had spied out the land, tore their clothes and said to all the congregation of the people of Israel, ‘The land, which we passed through to spy it out, is an exceedingly good land.  If the LORD delights in us, he will bring us into this land and give it to us...only do not rebel against the LORD. And do not fear the people of the land, for they are bread for us. Their protection is removed from them, and the LORD is with us; do not fear them.’” - Numbers 13:27-28, 30-32; 14:6-9

All twelve men were given the task of gathering information.  Ten men formed opinions about what was and was not possible based on the eyes through which they viewed the same exact things.  Ten men looked at the big walls and the strong people and the fortified cities and thought, “We don’t stand a chance against them.”  In fact, look how they described what their perspective did to their self-image: “we seemed to ourselves like grasshoppers, and so we seemed to them.”  These men felt so weak and diminished compared to the men they spied in the land of Canaan that they felt like tiny insects.  And they assumed that the warriors of Canaan would’ve agreed. Their eyes were only physical; they saw what stood in front of them (it was so big) and they saw what they were (they were so small).  Their God was not even part of the equation because they looked only with their physical eyes.  

Caleb and Joshua, on the other hand, had spiritual sight.  These two men saw the same walls, the same people, the same cities and thought: “Yeah….this is no problem for our plague-sending, slave-freeing, sea-parting, manna-dropping, water-from-a-rock God.”  While I’m sure it would’ve been easy to look at Canaan and see all of the obstacles in the way, Caleb and Joshua saw those obstacles as others in the long list of Red Seas and Pharaohs - impossible situations that their God would see them through.  Their faith in God gave them spiritual eyes that saw Him right in the middle of every part of the equation.  

I find this principle to be a vital message for the church today.  Yes, friends, our world is deeply troubled. Yes, the church has its struggles.  Certainly, parenting, marriage, making ends meet, and navigating life in general is difficult.  But what if we looked at our individual worlds through spiritual eyes? While the ten spies looked at Canaan and asked themselves, “What is here?”, Joshua and Caleb asked a radically different question: “What might God do here?”.

When I look at my life and the people and situations around me with spiritual eyes that are looking for how the Lord may be at work, my whole perspective is radically altered.  

• Instead of just a cranky boss, I might see a man whose heart is heavy from a divorce or a wayward child.  How can I put myself aside and encourage and love him if I never see his struggle?  

• Instead of a disrespectful third grader (ahem…), I might see a kid who is learning what it means to distinguish between his flesh and his spirit.  What if I never saw that? How could I help him learn to walk by the Spirit if I never see what is really happening in his heart?  

The fact of the matter is - if we never see what is really happening in the spiritual, we miss our chance to be the light-bearers that our God intends for us to be.  

For a believer, it is simple: our faith in God should inform our sight in every corner of our life and world.  This does not come naturally.  In our natural state, we only have eyes to see the physical.  But as we walk with the Lord, in His spirit, He gives us spiritual eyes.  Instead of being people overwhelmed by all of the impossible and all that’s going wrong, let’s go out into the world looking for what our God might do.  We might just find ourselves in our promised land.

Anne Mullins