Your Outlook Determines Your Outcome

Isaiah 49:14 “But Zion said, the Lord has forsaken me, and my Lord has forgotten me.”

Imagine, if you will, a magnificent building. Say, the Taj Mahal in India, or The Parthenon in Greece or The Pyramid of Giza in Egypt. Visualise it from three perspectives. (1) As a beautiful photograph. (2) As a scale model. (3) You are physically, literally there and you are seeing it with your own eyes. Now which of these three perspectives gives you the truest appreciation of its splendour? The picture may be well taken, but it’s only one dimensional. The scale model may be intricately made and it is certainly more dimensional, but it lacks sheer size and proportion. After all, it’s still only a scale model. It is only when viewed with your own eyes can you truly appreciate its magnitude and magnificence. Your personal perspective makes all the difference in the world. How you see things in life (your perspective) makes all the difference to how you handle them. You can see them as ‘how they appear to be’ or, you can see them as ‘how they really are.’ It’s all about perspective.

Alan Redpath (The late great Baptist preacher) said something I found helpful. He said, “You can look at your circumstances in two ways.” 1) You can look at God through your circumstances. 2) You can look at your circumstances through God. This will determine how you are going to see things, what your perspective is. If you view God through the fog, clouds and darkness of your circumstances then God will appear very dim and distant. But, if you look at your circumstances through God, they will appear conquerable, manageable and do-able.

That’s what was wrong with God’s people in Isaiah 49. They had been looking at God through their circumstances. They were seeing their troubles from a wrong perspective. Verse 14 - “But Zion said, the Lord has forsaken me, and my Lord has forgotten me.” In their long and painful captivity of seventy years, God seemed dim and distant. They had forgotten God’s mercy, His loving kindness, His great salvation. The fog of adverse circumstances had blurred their vision of God. Their perspective had changed. But God was trying to change their outlook, their narrow, one dimensional, grey scale, monochrome view of Him. This is what He is doing in Verses 15-16. “Can a woman forget her nursing child, and have not compassion on the son of her womb? Surely they may forget, yet I will not forget you. See I have inscribed you on the palms of my hands; your walls are continually before Me.”

Elijah on Mt. Carmel looked at his circumstances through God. Elijah under the Juniper tree looked at God through his circumstances.

The ten spies looked at God through their circumstances. (Num. 13) The two spies (Joshua & Caleb) looked at their circumstances through God.

Asaph in Psalm 73 started off looking at God through his circumstances but ended up looking at his circumstances through God.

Your outlook determines your outcome. Phil. 4:4-8 Hab. 3:17-19 Mt. 6:25-34

- Pastor David Goudy