REVrant 29.7 - "What Is Seen"

While driving home for lunch with my wife today, I was musing alone in the car about a number of things I had heard and seen this morning.  I participated in meetings and discussions that covered a range of topics in church life.  Nothing unusual, really.  A list of issues and situations that commonly occur.  And in the midst of my quiet musing, a quote my Dad used many times popped into my head – “Things are not always as they seem.”

Admit it.  Isn’t it easy to look at a situation and conclude that you know what’s going on because that’s the way it “seems?”  Do you ever consider that things might be very different than you think?  That, in my Dad’s classic words, “Things may not be as they seem!”  That you might have a situation all summed up in your mind, but that there may be some things you don’t see…and that things might be very different!  I think this way all the time.  Part of that probably comes from the realities of my life and ministry. 

It’s not unusual for me to sit with someone and hear what’s “really going on” in their life.  I don’t think too much shocks me anymore.  But every now and then, as I’m listening to someone tell their story, and it varies so dramatically from what I thought…and saw…prior to the discussion – I find my self thinking, this isn’t what I thought was going on in this person’s life at all!  “Things are not always as they seem.”

To be fair, sometimes, things ARE as they seem.  But, “not always.”  Just knowing that makes me want to be careful about making snap judgments or arriving at hasty conclusions.  I want to make sure that I have all the facts before forming definitive thoughts about people and situations.

Recently, I found an interesting verse in my Bible reading –  “So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen.  For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.”  II Corinthians 4:18  Keep this in mind the next time you’re tempted to obsess over what is “seen.”