Our perceived reality can often be skewed, like looking through the wrong end of a pair of binoculars. It often has us and our plans as the star of the show and the center of the universe. Actual reality says something entirely different and it frees us from ourselves in a mighty way.

These days of uncertainty bring with them a range of emotions that can fluctuate in similar fashion to the sun’s beams that come and go on a partially cloudy day. Some days feel like everyday life and others feel surreal and anything but normal. One minute we feel resigned with the way it is and the next, there is a real sadness over what has been lost. We can go from content to frustrated in the blink of an eye, depending on where our thoughts take us and how we are viewing our reality at the moment.

In all these shifting emotions, we need to constantly pray that God would graciously pull us up from the muck of our own perceived reality and into the beauty of the actual reality that we live in. My perceived reality says I am stuck at home. My actual reality says I have been given more time to engage with the people in my life that I have been called to love the most: my family (Titus 2:4). My perceived reality says my personal plans (and even those of my kids, which includes two seniors) have crumbled and it’s okay to feel frustrated. My actual reality says that those were never the plans God ordained before the foundation of the world. So, I can choose to trust in the character of God and praise Him for who He is even when I don’t always understand what He is doing (Isaiah 46:10). My perceived reality says I don’t like the uncertainty of what the coming months may or may not look like and the emptiness of my daily planner. My actual reality says that I have never had “control” of my life or the lives of my family, though my planner may have been well mapped out and it appeared I had my “ducks in a row”. Instead, I have been called to cling, in full dependence, to the One who holds every minute of every day in His sovereign, good hands (Eph. 1:11-12). This grows my own heart in the sweetness of dependent prayer…learning to pray without ceasing (I Thess. 5:17).

Our perceived reality can often be skewed, like looking through the wrong end of a pair of binoculars. It often has us and our plans as the star of the show and the center of the universe. Actual reality says something entirely different and it frees us from ourselves in a mighty way. It teaches us that it’s not about us at all.

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