Hmmm...seeing things differently now?

Create in me a clean heart, O God; restore within me a sense of being brand new. (Psalm 51:10)

Einstein said, "We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them."  He was so true in this perception!  The problems we create will never be overcome or changed until we change the way we have been thinking about them!  To change our thought process we often need to change what we are focusing on so often or intensely. If we always see the problem, we will never see the solution standing just beyond it! If all we see is the river in front of us, raging out of control and making it hard to pass over to the other side, we will likely not see the bridge being lowered from the other side!

Restoration is a process of not only being "clean" of the sin in our lives, but of being able to look beyond the sin.  We can ask for forgiveness when we have done something we are not happy we have done, but if all we keep thinking about is that thing we asked forgiveness for, will we never move beyond that thing? It will still be the thing we focus on - anchoring us to the same place we have always been! We want to move beyond it, but we didn't take our eyes off it long enough to see our way beyond it! The drawbridge was being lowered, but we missed it because all we saw was the raging waters of our sin!

Our psalmist reminds us we need a sense of being brand new in order to see what moves us from where we always have been into the place we want to be. I don't know how you "sense" things in your life, but I have to "picture" myself or the object I am trying to move toward in a certain way. If I want to see flowerbeds take shape in my backyard, I have to first walk the space to see how far I want them to extend into the yard, looking carefully at where the sprinkler system could be tied in so I can get water to the beds. In my mind's eye, a picture is being created. I am seeing something which is not yet there, but which I am envisioning will take shape. I am sensing what it will be like to realize the beauty of the bed in that place.

The same is true when we want to move beyond those "problematic" areas in our lives which might plainly be called "sinful areas". If we want to move beyond them, we have to picture something different than what we have been doing, saying, or thinking! We have to allow a new focus to take form within our mind's eye! I don't think we do this in a vacuum, though. It isn't something WE create, but rather it is something which is created within us - in seed form. It is part of being "cleansed" of our sin.  We receive that seed form of what change will look like, but for full restoration to take place, we have to cultivate the seed! We have to believe growth is possible. We must do what we know to do and leave the rest up to God to help with the growth process. We don't "bring forth" the growth - he does!

What we can do is begin to change ou focus. When you focus is on the problem exclusively, all we see is the lack of growth. Restoration begins when we have a new "vision" in our minds of how something will be different. All change begins by seeing things differently than we have always seen them. We don't always control the means by which change will be accomplished, but we can control what we focus on while the change is taking place!  Just sayin!