Changing Your Vantage Point

Sometimes the only way to change our perspective is to take a few steps in a different direction. We could stand and look at what we see, from our current vantage point, as "the whole picture"

but then if we move a few steps this way or that, suddenly we see a whole new picture.

“A positive mind is like a powerful stream of water that is gathering volume and force from hundreds of tributaries all along its course. The further on it goes the greater its power, until when it reaches its goal, that power is simply immense. A negative mind, however, would be something like a stream, that the further it flows the more divisions it makes, until, when it reaches its goal, instead of being one powerful stream, it has become a hundred, small, weak, shallow streams.” ― Christian D. Larson

Color Is A Hymn

Charles Baudelaire “The sap rises and, itself a mixture of elements, flowers in a mixture of tones; the trees, the rocks, the granites cast their reflections in the mirror of the water; all the transparent objects seize and imprison colour reflections, both close and distant, as the light passes through them. As the star of day moves, the tones change in value, but always they respect their mutual sympathies and natural hatreds, and continue to live in harmony by reciprocal concessions. The shadows move slowly and drive before them or blot out the tones as the light itself, changing position, sets others vibrating. These mingle their reflections, and, modifying their qualities by casting over them transparent and borrowed glazes, multiply to infinity their melodious marriages and make them easier to achieve. When the great ball of fire sinks into the waters, red fanfares fly in all directions, a blood-red harmony spreads over the horizon, green turns to a deep red. But soon vast blue shadows chase rhythmically before them the crowd of orange and soft tones, which are like the distant and muted echoes of the light. This great symphony of today, which is the eternally renewed variation of the symphony of yesterday, this succession of melodies, where the variety comes always from the infinite, this complex hymn is called colour.” ― Charles Baudelaire, Selected Writings on Art and Literature

Reflection

“There are two ways of spreading light: to be The candle or the mirror that reflects it.” ― Edith Wharton

He Leadeth Me

1. He leadeth me, O blessed thought!
   O words with heav’nly comfort fraught!
   Whate’er I do, where’er I be
   Still ’tis God’s hand that leadeth me.
   • Refrain:
     He leadeth me, He leadeth me,
     By His own hand He leadeth me;
     His faithful foll’wer I would be,
     For by His hand He leadeth me.
2. Sometimes ’mid scenes of deepest gloom,
   Sometimes where Eden’s bowers bloom,
   By waters still, o’er troubled sea,
   Still ’tis His hand that leadeth me.
3. Lord, I would place my hand in Thine,
   Nor ever murmur nor repine;
   Content, whatever lot I see,
   Since ’tis my God that leadeth me.
4. And when my task on earth is done,
   When by Thy grace the vict’ry’s won,
   E’en death’s cold wave I will not flee,
   Since God through Jordan leadeth me. (Joseph H. Gilmore 1862) 

Election 2016 went the way some wanted it to go and not the way others wanted, sort of like life in general I guess.  I am thankful, not only for the fact that no matter who leads our country, God is ultimately in control.  The same is true for our lives individually, nothing happens that God does not allow.  Many times the things that happen don't seem fair from our vantage point and sometimes we might even wonder why a just God would allow them to be.  I'm pretty sure God understands that and does not hold it against us when we feel that way but I also know that God alone sees the big picture.  He alone knows where the road is going, and if we will let Him, He's there to lead us, by His own hand, every step of the way.