For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways, says the LORD. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts. – Isaiah 55:8-9 (NRSVUE)
After a break from the weekly devotions for a bit to allow time to focus on the Advent devotions and the Christmas season, it is time to get back to regular weekly routines. A new year has begun and we are now in the season of Epiphany, a season of remembering our baptismal calling and focusing on following Jesus.
One of the things I did during the Christmas season that you might notice if you stop by the church office is rearranging my office space, moving the desk to a new spot in the office. It is something that I have thought of doing on and off for a while, but the desk is so heavy that I did not want to rush into it. Between services on Christmas Eve, though, I had the right combination of time and people willing to help so that I could make it happen. I think the timing is right, too, to move things around at the beginning of a new year. I find that changing the physical space we are in can be a good way to shake up our mental space as well. It can open new ways of looking things and bring new insights. The desk seemed to be if not immovable at least too much work to change, but getting it moved freed up everything else to be changed around too. So too, seemingly intractable problems can give way once something shifts just a bit in our perspective. Starting the year off with a new way of looking at things can be a helpful way to re-energize after the holiday rush.
A consistent theme of scripture is that God’s ways are not human ways. God views the world differently than our human inclinations lead us to view the world. Again and again, God’s calling is to see the world anew. God breaks through our insistence that the world must work in a certain way, and calls us to look again. The Holy Spirit empowers us to see the world with divinely-guided eyes, and in doing so open up a new perspective on what is important. God turns our world upside down and lifts up what we forget. We resist these changes and do what we can to revert to our preferred ways of seeing the world, but God is persistent in calling us to free our thinking to new perspectives in order to see what God is doing in the world. What seemingly unmovable objects might be blocking your view of the world? How might God be calling you to re-arrange your mental space to open up a new perspective on the world around you this Epiphany season?