Escaping The Winepress

About now, based on the title you might be thinking that I intend to talk about how to avoid being figuratively squished in a figurative wine press. If so, it's rather ironic because it would be an incorrect assumption or "perspective" based on a "deceptive title"- and it's actually perspective and deceptive titles that are on my heart. You'll see the meaning of the title soon enough if you haven't already guessed well ahead of me - I know in my heart how smart my Lord's children are.

In my efforts to follow Christ on this journey through life so far, there is a certain truth that the Lord has made abundantly clear to me and it's this: The more successful that I am in my ability to see and understand things from His perspective, the more intimately and successfully I will be able to interact with Him and fulfill His purpose in giving me life. That knowledge has led me to pray continually asking Him to grant me His perspective - to see and understand things as He sees and understands them. Those requests are usually accompanied by the declaration that I know that "the way that you see and understand the things in life is the truth of what exists before me." 

With all of the confusion and misguiding distractions, opinions and interpretations of things in the world around me, I know that His perspective is true and unaffected by any deception or misrepresentation this world and it's business might confront me with. So gaining His perspective is a paramount endeavor in my heart and one that I will continually work toward for the rest of my life and never completely achieve - because my mind and capacity are so limited when compared to His. However, He has been very graceful in response to my repeated requests and I feel confident in my own heart that He's continually giving me little glimpses of His perspective that bless me endlessly in my personal relationship with Him. But admittedly and ashamedly, there's always been one part of His perspective that I've struggled with and I don't think for a second that the struggle is uncommon or that it's limited to me - and it's how He sees me. As scripture shows, our friend Gideon did too...

Judges 6:11-16 NLT

11 Then the angel of the LORD came and sat beneath the oak tree at Ophrah, which belonged to Joash of the clan of Abiezer. Gideon son of Joash had been threshing wheat at the bottom of a winepress to hide the grain from the Midianites. 12 The angel of the LORD appeared to him and said, "Mighty hero, the LORD is with you!" 13 "Sir," Gideon replied, "if the LORD is with us, why has all this happened to us? And where are all the miracles our ancestors told us about? Didn't they say, 'The LORD brought us up out of Egypt'? But now the LORD has abandoned us and handed us over to the Midianites." 14Then the LORD turned to him and said, "Go with the strength you have and rescue Israel from the Midianites. I am sending you!" 15 "But Lord," Gideon replied, "how can I rescue Israel? My clan is the weakest in the whole tribe of Manasseh, and I am the least in my entire family!" 16 The LORD said to him, "I will be with you. And you will destroy the Midianites as if you were fighting against one man."

Gideon was hiding in the wine press out of a fear of the Midianites. The Midianites had been severely oppressing the Israelites at will for some time. When the angel of the Lord spoke to him, Gideon saw himself based on his lineage, who he was at the moment and his own personal past. That was all that he, or any of us for that matter, are likely able to see. It's what we have to go on when assessing our own strengths, weaknesses and worth without our Lord's perspective and they set constraining limits in our own minds. But in Gideon's case as is the case of each of us - His children, our Lord has a different perspective - one that is "the truth of what exists before us". His ability to see our potential and our future is not obstructed or limited in any way by our view of our lineage, current standing
... or our past. And our worth? The value of any single one of us was determined by the Savior's sacrifice of His own life on his or her behalf - far beyond enumerating in any currency...

We all have a perspective of ourselves comprised of how we see ourselves today ... and our past. We all have a past, but we serve a forward looking and all knowing God who is continually concentrating on our future. If we're holding onto sins of the past that we haven't yet asked His forgiveness for, then we've carried them with us into the present and we need to deal with that. But knowing that He is just to forgive us when we confess them and ask, we can put them back in the past where they belong. I personally think it's important for us to remember where we've been - not to carry labels or titles that are no longer true of us, but to help us remember to approach Him with gratitude and humility. What we may think of ourselves and our alleged limitations are just titles that we give ourselves and obstacles that we throw in our own path. If they're not the titles and the standing that Christ has given us, then we're failing to embrace His unlimited perspective - the truth of what exists before us.

If you have been or currently are wrestling with how you see yourself and how He sees you, then know that you're not alone. Gideon did too. But when he embraced the Lord's perspective he conquered tens of thousands of Midianites with only three hundred men ...

There's much more to each of us than what we in our limited capacity are sometimes willing or even able to see. Embracing His perspective of each of us is critical to realizing the future that He wants for us. I know that it's true that I've personally wrestled with hanging onto past labels and the objections and barriers I have raised before the Lord on my own behalf and into my own path. With His help by His grace, I intend to put an end to that chapter of my life and reach for what He has in store for me.

So, what's in your future?