How can two people see the exact same thing and come away with different perspectives? Some people see things positively...like an opportunity and adventure. Others see only defeat, annoyance and slouchy indifference.

How we perceive challenges can change the way we react to them.

In the book of Numbers, Moses asks twelve men from the Tribes of Israel to spy on the land they know God has promised them. He gave them strict instruction to go on a fact-finding mission...not an emotional breakdown. When they report back to the huge congregation, only Caleb and Joshua bring back a good report. Caleb says, “By all means we should take the land,” while the other ten men shouted fear and a false reality. “They’re too big for us...we look like grasshoppers in their sight!”

For forty long years after this event, Caleb and Joshua have to live among the very people who refused to receive God’s promise. They had a different perspective, but lived among those who brought everyone else down by their unbelief.

Sometimes we, too, live among people with a different perspective than our own. Negativity, darkness and depression seep into those around us, often tempting us to follow their call. But 40 years later we see Caleb and Joshua’s reward.

Caleb stands before Joshua in the newly conquered territory, now 85 years old! He bravely says “Give me the hill country!” Instead of asking for rolling plains and easy meadows, he asks for a territory still challenging to tame. He still has the perspective that God will deliver and come through, because he sees God with a bold and true perspective.

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Episode 6: The Perspective Paradigm