Perspective

In the short story, "The Common Day," by John Cheever, a couple is looking to buy the Emerson place, a farmstead on a hill.  The couple, Ellen and Jim, are both gazing at the farmhouse.  This is how Cheever writes it:
"Ellen looked from the modest, weathered farmhouse to Jim's face, to see what his reaction would be.  Neither of them spoke.  Where she saw charm and security, he saw advanced dilapidation and imprisonment."  Both Ellen and Jim are seeing things very differently.  Their perspectives don't match up.  After describing this difference, and realizing that Jim's perspective of the house will win out, Cheever closes out the scene describing Ellen with these words:  "He followed her and closed the door.  She looked behind her as if he had closed the door on her salvation, and then she took his arm and walked beside him to the car."
Having a different perspective about our lives is partly what this Sunday's message is about.  We may look at our lives as Jim does the farmhouse: dilapidation.  But from God's perspective of our lives, things may look very different:  charm, and salvation.  How do we move from one perspective to the other?  That's what we'll think about this Sunday in worship.  Hope to see you there!