Perspective

Much of growth is simply about perspective. Much of what we lack is perspective.

Consider - when you are a child, how much are you aware of? Little, if nothing at all. Simply content to be. Then you become a teen, and you start to become aware of yourself, your wants and desires more sharply. Then, perhaps, you grow into an adult (many people remain teens all their lives), and you begin to see others whom you have responsibility towards. And then, you grow more and more, and you see more and more connections, and realize more and more that what you are to do has ever less and less with your wants and more and more with the needs of those around you.

This is what I mean by perspective.

Our sinfulness would destroy this. Our greed, our passion, our selfishness would have us turn our eyes away from our neighbor and on to ourselves. And this is a constant threat, a constant danger - that we loose our perspective and become focused only upon ourselves, curved in on ourselves by sin.

Keep your perspective - and the way to do that is to have your eyes focused firmly upon the Cross of Christ Jesus. The whole world, all its weight, its burdens, its sin, all of it is firmly held there and borne by our Lord... when we see that, we can see the needs, the flaws, even the sins of our neighbors, not with anger, not with scorn, but with love and compassion.

By being focused upon our Lord upon the Cross, we grow in a perspective that lets us not only see but understand and have compassion upon the whole world.