I recently received a little wooden cross made from discarded branches of an Olive Tree. As I looked at this small gift, I thought of how something beautiful came from something that was going to be discarded as trash. The same is true in our lives. I have seen many beautiful things made from discarded items. I have seen wreaths made from pine tree and grapevine branches that were discarded. It is all about perspective. We tend to see things through our own eyes when we need to look to Christ for His perspective because He sees the big picture. If I were to claim a word for the year ahead, I believe I would choose the word “Perspective”. I want to see things through the eyes of God and not through my own.
Many years ago, there was a song written that the words still ring true today for my life. God does not see rubbish; He sees something to be made beautiful in His eyes! What more can we ask for! We are beautiful in the eyes of our Lord and Savior! As we come out of a year that seemed to be upside down, God can use those days of 2020 to shape us into something beautiful! May we move forward into 2021 and allow God to shape us into something beautiful!
“Something beautiful, something good, all my confusion He understood. All I had to offer him was brokenness and strife, but He made something beautiful out of my life.” (Gaither)
2 Corinthians 4:16-18 -Therefore, we do not lose heart, but though we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. 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.
