The present trend of gray automobiles fascinates me. Colors, that in times past were reserved for the primer coat before the finish coat of a paint job, are now the trendy fashion color. Primer and gray painter’s putty were always colors that you knew would be covered up with a “pretty” color. So, who is to say what color is “pretty” and another color is “ugly”? It is all in personal perception, and personal perception is determined by one’s personal tutoring and experiences. What we are taught is what we walk. Negative influences impart negative perceptions. Positive influences impart positive perceptions. Life is fluid. Truth is absolute. Perceptions we have are true to us, but the next person’s perceptions are also true to them. The variables of life can leave us reeling with a deeply wrinkled brow and a scratching of the head. There might seem to be no absolutes—but there are. Another thing that requires my own personal adjustment is a metal roof on residence. For most of my life I have associated metal roofs with commercial buildings. The trend of houses having metal roofs has been going on for several years. I still must adjust my inward responses when I see a metal roof on a house. Because of the years of seeing houses with asphalt shingles and commercial buildings with metal roofs, to this day, somehow to me, a metal roof on a house “just does not look right.” It’s crazy. They look great! They are durable. But I recognize that I have a “prejudice,” a “pre-disposed idea,” of how certain roofs should look for certain buildings, at least in my brain. Maybe all that is just me. I don’t know. But I do know that our human outlook and attitudes are largely shaped by how we are taught and by our experiences and by our environment. This same type thing exists and operates in the spiritual realm, in the kingdom of God. How we are taught, or not taught, what we have experienced, or not experienced—these things along with our environment influences us greatly. This influence is either according to truth or only a part-truth. This is why it serves us well to come before the Lord and lay everything we have been taught, and all we have experienced, and all our environment—to lay it all down at His feet. Then, with our trust in the Lord Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit, allow Him to teach us His Word and His Way in Christ, the Spirit-anointed Jesus, as our Lord and Guide. Our perceptions and experiences might be in shades of gray with pre-formed ideas. But God’s Word and God’s Ways are absolute, established in “black and white.” The Way of God is embodied in the Spirit-anointed person of the Lord Jesus. To follow Him is to follow the absolute truth. Knowing Him intimately gives us God’s perspective in this life and in death with God’s way, God’s truth, and God’s life.
Shades of Gray
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