Wisdom: The God-Given Ability of "Seeing Beyond"

If you’ve read the 1990’s Children’s award-winning novel, The Giver, written by Lois Lowry or you’ve taken the time to see the recent theatre-box rendition of it, then you’ll know what I’m talking about when I use the phrase seeing beyond.

It’s nothing mystical or oddly-spiritual. It’s simply the ability some (few!) of the characters in the book/movie were born with that enables them to see things other people don’t see. They’re tuned into things like color, for example, when the rest of the world is merely seeing black-and-white. It’s an interesting skill to have, this seeing beyond.  It’s actually quite cool to have an advantage like that over the others. But this ability must be exercised and revealed with caution. For with much privilege comes much responsibility.

Just as recently as yesterday, two distinct situations came across the lives of two people that are very dear to me. And they soon, as you can imagine, came to my attention as well.

The first situation hit a dear friend of mine, unexpectedly, in the midst of her regular classroom duties nonetheless, as one high school student (a girl) decided to go into full-force-fight-street-club-mode on another student (girl). My friend didn’t plan that into her lesson plans. No sane person would. My friend didn’t wake up that morning thinking, “Hey I think I might have to stop a fist-fight in reading class today.” No one thinks like that. In fact, I’m all but guessing my friend didn’t even have a clue what was happening until the moment when it all hit home (quite literally).

No teacher should ever have to deal with that.

The second situation came across the desk of my dear sweet little sister yesterday when she found out a co-manager decided to take the life of his girlfriend, and she’d been reassigned to cover his store today, be involved in the ministry of the presence, and help all those people who worked underneath his care to cope with getting through today. My sister didn’t plan for this to happen. No one saw this coming. Just last week, that same man was sitting across the desk of my sister - in her very own office - in a meeting. Who could know?

No 25-yr.-old manager should ever have to shoulder that amount of stress.

These aren’t the only two instances of broken people colliding inside this imperfect world we live in, but they’re the most recent accounts. And the ones that currently hit the closest to home. And to the people close to my heart.

Both situations will require these two sweet ladies in my life to exercise a bit of the power to see beyond, or what we as Christians commonly call wisdom.

There’s no college course that addresses the raw need for human love and acceptance, or a textbook that explicitly outlines steps to take when those basic functions of stability are lacking. There’s no classroom management techniques that can bound the aching of the human soul. Sure, it comes out in more identifiable ways, like fist-fights. But the underlying issues are complex, are sometimes difficult and messy to unravel, and requires more knowledge than any author could possibly publish. It requires wisdom, love, and acceptance that can only come from God Himself.

Closely related, there’s no management style or leadership course that addresses how to console workers after they’ve found out their manager, though maybe good at managing his store, has so sorely mismanaged his anger and his personal life that it’s led him to a decision that is of the utmost unthinkable – murder. The underlying issues behind that all-encompassing anger, the need for love and acceptance, the raw ache of the human soul for the Divine, can only be fully addressed and satisfied through a relationship with Jesus Christ. And the way my sister will be able to walk into that situation with any sort of hope and comfort to those around her is because of the God-given wisdom and the words she will be granted to say by Him, as she walks and talks with the co-workers today.

With all said, my heart is heavy. And yet, hopeful.

Our world is broken, people.

Our world is broken people.

Our broken world needs broken people, like you and me, who love the Lord, to show them Hope.

How He heals.

How He redeems.

How He loves.

We need Him in handling the messy situations and messed-up people (we’re all messed-up people) that come into our path.

We need His Words.

We need His truth.

We need His grace.

We need His wisdom.

In other words, we need the ability to see beyond.

With His help, how can you see beyond current circumstances, touch a hurt, and heal a soul today?

Remember, not everyone around you has this special “ability”. You may be the only one in your family, workplace, edge of the world, etc.

But God has placed you there strategically for a reason.

He has a purpose for putting you there in that hurting place.

He has a unique story to tell through you leaning into Him for wisdom, exercising your ability to see beyond.

With this privilege comes great responsibility.

What are you doing to receive or exercise Godly wisdom today?