looking through me

I have this depth perception issue. Namely a lack of it.

Things look a little . . . flat. When I’m approaching a red light, it’s almost impossible for me to tell which lane has fewer cars. It’s become a game to try to figure out the shorter lane. More times than not I’m completely wrong—I’m not even close.

But I’ve learned to adapt. I use stationary objects and relative size of known entities to calculate position. I spend a little extra mental energy doing what others do without conscious effort, but it works.

I think I might have a bigger depth perception issue though. I perceive my relationship with God based on my relative position to others. I compare myself to them or try to come up with a formula for their proximity to God and where that places me. I miss the point entirely.

I miss that God isn’t evaluating me based on my relationship to anyone but Himself.

It’s a dangerous game to factor distances based on others; there are no stationary people in relationship to God. Each is in constant motion drawing nearer to or drifting farther from Him. The sense of scale is skewed.

I veer into other people’s lanes when I start plotting my route based on moving, fallible targets. I abandon the course marked out for me. I start jockeying for position, keeping tabs on others, creating detailed equations to justify myself. It’s not the path He designed.

And when I’m measuring the length of the lines in the great cloud of witnesses it means my eyes are no longer fixed on Jesus—the only true reference point.

No amount of astigmatism or myopia is to blame for my lack of spiritual depth perception. I don’t need to see in greater dimensions; I need to steady my gaze on the unchanging Focal Point.