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"I believe the single most important fact that makes us think we are victors even when, in similar circumstances, others fall into victim thinking is that victors base their identity on an eternal perspective."
As quoted from the book "Victor - Breaking Free From a Victim-Based Society" by John H. Hovis Page 188.
Do you give much thought to eternity? I don't know if it is my age or what but I think about eternity a lot. What will this time be like? Does eternity feel like a long time? Will we be bored in heaven? Will there be carne-asada burritos in heaven? You may think that last question is kind of irrelevant - I don't. Forever is a long time to go without your favorite food.
All we know is what we have experienced here on earth. Even the things others teach us just don't do it for us as compared to actually going through the process of life ourselves. When my wife was pregnant with our daughter, she asked someone how she would know when she was in full labor. This wise woman just looked at Barb smiled and said, "You will just know!"
Some things in life you just can't explain. They have to be experienced fully in order for you to know what those things will be like. I think the same goes for eternity. We just won't know what that life will look like until this one is gone. That fact shouldn't keep us from having a perspective based on eternal concepts.
I believe perspective is the key to living out this life with as much power and presence our victor status affords us. It is when we allow our perspective to be swayed by the short term that we place ourselves in situations where power is wanting and victim thinking is quick to appear. Perspective is such an important concept for those of use living the life of a victor.
Perspective doesn't guarantee that we will get all the answers. Perspective does let us see things in a different light. Let me give you a simple example to show you what I mean.
I love getting a job done. There are few things more satisfying than to be able to check off something from my long list of things to do. Bringing things to some level of completion has really been a driving force in my life from time to time.
That's not necessarily a bad thing. It is when I am stuck in victim thinking that being driven to get the job done can cause me to do things in ways that can make victims of those closest to me. I can remember situations where I was right in the middle of a project. It didn't matter how insignificant that project was, my drive to finish that project made me do and say things to my wife and children that gave them the impression that they didn't matter. Fact is, they didn't matter to me at that moment. Finishing the project mattered more than they did. I really hurt them with that kind of attitude and for that I am truly sorry.
How would perspective have helped me in that situation? I'm now trying to look at the things I do with an attitude of what will it matter in 100 years. You have to realize that a century is but a drop in the bucket compared to eternity, but that time-frame is long enough to help me let perspective play an important role in my life.
Here's how thinking about my project with this kind of timeline helps me. There are very few things I have done or will do that will amount to a hill of beans 100 years from now. Most of what I have done will not matter to anyone that far down the road. What I have learned is that what does make a difference for the future is relationship. If what I am doing is interrupted by someone needing connection, I'm getting better at recognizing the opportunity to step into eternity by allowing relationship be what drives me.
I happen to believe that investing in relationship makes the difference over the long run. At least that's how I believe God sees it. How can I say that? The Bible backs me up on that. Check out today's reading with me now.
This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. 1 John 4:9-10 (NIV)
I don't see a whole lot of getting things done in this verse. Instead, I see a bunch of love. That love is emphasized with words that scream relationship. Words like, us, son, our, and we speak to connection. I believe God is much more concerned with connection than He is with getting things done. That's a lesson I have had to learn the hard way but am starting to see how this eternal perspective makes all the sense in the world when compared to the victim thinking ways I so easily adopt in my life.
This is but one example of applying an eternal perspective in all that you do. When you let life be filtered through eternity things just look different. Our responses to things, even bad things that may come our way, take on a different role than they would when we view them through the lens of this moment.
I don't think we can fully live out this life as a victor without a perspective that goes way beyond our lives here on earth. That is particularly the case when our identities are concerned. Looking to things in this world for substantiation as to who we are just doesn't cut it as far as I can tell. I need something more permanent than things I can do in this world to prove who I am. I need to be more aware of my eternal nature and let that be the foundation from which I can build my identity.
What you take on today might not have eternal consequences. However, how you view what you do today does have a significant connection to what will happen ten thousand years from now. Take time today to let the eternal nature of who you are be part of the process that drives you in all you do today. Let your victor status be what people come to understand as you let the forever fact that you are God's Child rule in your life.
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