Thinking God's Thoughts About Others

About three years ago, my family was living in a relatively small town in Virginia. There was a downtown city area, some housing developments, and then a lot of farmland. One day, I was at the playground behind the grocery store with my son and my daughter. We had the place to ourselves and were enjoying a beautiful early spring day. Another car pulled in, and I watched to see if the passengers were familiar playmates. 

Instead, a woman emerged from the car dressed in all black from head to toe. She was wearing classic Islamic dress, and the only part of her that was visible was her eyes.  This was particularly uncommon in our area. Sure, there were Muslim families, including our lovely next-door neighbors, but the full black dress was rarely seen. What shocked me even more was when she began to speak to her daughter. I anticipated a Middle Eastern accent, but by her voice, she was a southern African-American woman who had converted to Islam.
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She let her six-year-old daughter play on the playground while she sat in the car with a smaller child. I continued to play with my kids, looking over at the car periodically. When her daughter got stuck on the slide, I went and helped her, and the mom emerged from her vehicle. She came over and we had a brief, pleasant exchange before she loaded her daughter in the car and they left for the day.

As she was leaving, I was still watching with perplexity. Jesus interrupted my thoughts. Now, Jesus rarely interrupts my thoughts. Normally, God seems to wait for me to talk to Him… but we had a brief and powerful exchange.
 
“Ask me what I think of her…” Jesus said.
“I know… you love her…” I thought.
“No, ask me what I think of her…” Jesus responded.
“Ok- what do you think about her?” I asked.
“I think she’s a princess.” Jesus said.
[now I’ll be brutally honest, my next thought wasn’t my finest]
“…princess of darkness…”  I scoffed.
 
But, my heart meditated on those words, and soon enough agreed. When we look at people, we see flesh. We see what is current, we see what’s now. When God looks at people, He sees how He created them. He sees their [and our] full potential and it’s the job of the spirit of prophecy to speak that truth and call people as God sees them, not what our own eyes see.

I never got the chance to tell that woman what God said on that day. I saw her another time, and fumbled the words in my mouth in a mess of nerves. But, that experience greatly shaped my own perspective on dealing with people… particularly the difficult people we don’t want to deal with. Though what we see and experience in our interactions has physical truth, the spiritual truth of what God sees will always be higher, and sometimes just needs a word or two of encouragement to manifest in people’s lives!

I've been particularly negative these past few months, from interactions at home to my prenatal care nightmare that I've been dealing with... but last night God pressed my heart to start envisioning my birth and prenatal care in a perfect world. Sometimes, choosing to be positive is the first step to releasing faith when you feel like you're past EMPTY.
 
So, this week I challenge you to release God's love to people who we don't think deserve it, and try to see them how God sees them, and release positivist into areas of your life that feel barren and filled with dry bones! 

...and let me know how it goes!

Blessings,
​Alex

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