When you don’t want to wake up in the morning, check your perspective.

Do you ever get tired of life, of following the same routine morning after morning? I do the same things every day, I accomplish everything that’s on my plan, but I hardly ever accomplish anything I really want. Just getting through the day takes so much energy that I rarely have the strength to get to the things I really want to do.

Some days it can be hard to just keep going, to persist in doing what you know is right when you can’t see a purpose in it.

Dead sunflower in the pasture - Safe Haven Farm, Haven, KS

Today’s verses are 2 Corinthians 4:16-18.

That is why we never give up. Though our bodies are dying, our spirits are being renewed every day. For our present troubles are small and won’t last very long. Yet they produce for us a glory that vastly outweighs them and will last forever! So we don’t look at the troubles we can see now; rather, we fix our gaze on things that cannot be seen. For the things we see now will soon be gone, but the things we cannot see will last forever.

So much of life is perspective. So much of surviving and thriving on earth is perspective. If you can maintain the right perspective, you can get through any challenge. If you can remember that going to the dentist is good for you even though it’s uncomfortable, you can prevent painful and dangerous oral surgeries. If you can remember that going the speed limit is right even though it’s inconvenient, you can prevent getting a ticket or causing an accident.

Perspective is everything.

Spring is going to get here eventually. Some folks say it’s here already, but I think it’s just Kansas screwing with us. But at some point, the tilt of the earth is going to spin us into warmer temperatures and longer days. But until then, it’s dark and cold(ish). And we have a choice. We can view the winter as the season where we hunker down and try to stay warm until spring begins and doing the right thing becomes comfortable and convenient again, or we can keep doing the things we know are right even if it means we might be cold.

When you’re tired, it’s easy to be tempted to give up. When you’ve been pulled in so many directions at once and had so much demanded from you, it’s easy to blame other people for your inability to complete the tasks you’ve been assigned. But is it right?

Giving up is the easy way out. And easy rarely is the same as right.

According to this passage, the difficulties that we’re experiencing in this life are small and temporary. I know some days they don’t feel small and temporary; they feel huge and permanent. But check your perspective. In comparison to eternity, they’re nothing. In comparison to what we will gain in eternity by persevering, they’re just a little bump in the road.

And we can choose to focus on the problems and insurmountable odds that we encounter on a daily basis. Or we can choose to focus on what God has said about the problems and insurmountable odds that we encounter on a daily basis. They’re small and they don’t last very long and by enduring them, we will receive glory that outweighs and outlasts them.

We can choose to see only the troubles that we see every day. Or we can choose to look beyond them and focus on what good they might do in our lives to come. Because according to this verse, the things we see are going to end, and the things we can’t see yet will last forever.

Perspective. It’s all about perspective. It changes everything.