What would you consider your design style to be? If you had to choose just one, what would you say is your favorite item to decorate your home with?
I really try to only integrate things into my own home that mean something to me. Items that have a value that can always be tied to something or someone I love. I like to surround myself with reminders of special times with family or photos that mark significant moments in our journey together.
One of my favorite things to decorate with are patent prints. They are so on trend and widely used as home décor by many a designer. At the same time, they have a history and almost a soul to them, many having been around for hundreds or even thousands of years. There’s something comforting about things from so long ago being represented in our lives today. They still have relevancy.
Patent prints appeal so much to me because they reveal an item’s intended design. They illustrate an item’s unique purpose from their creator’s unbiased perspective. They show us the vision the creator had for their use in this world. Every invention has a purpose.
And every time I see a patent print, I think about what purposes God had in mind when He created you and me.
Our society disagrees on an awful lot right now. At least that’s what gets the most attention in mainstream media today. There are a lot of complex questions being asked and many important issues that need attending to if we are going to start facilitating real change in our country. But for today, let’s just solve one major household conflict once and for all.
How to properly install a roll of toilet paper.
If this has ever been an argument in your home, raise your hand. We all profess to know the “correct” way to replace the roll. As a mom, I’m just happy if someone does it at all! But between you and I, you know the flap should be on the outside. Over vs. under!
In all seriousness, I believe that to be true. The flap belongs in the front. I’m not just confident in that belief because that is my preferred method, or because it’s the example that was set before me when I was growing up. It’s because I’ve seen the patent.
I have seen for myself what the creator had in mind.
I’ve been writing in regards to what can be done to change the trajectory of how we communicate on social media. To change the way we treat and speak to one another online. Many people are wondering why the same rules that apply to social interactions in person don’t transfer to online exchanges? What is it that allows us to say things on social media that we would never say when face to face? I believe it’s largely in part because we can’t really “see” one another, literally or figuratively.
And when can’t see one another visually, it can be hard to “see” each other at all.
Social media was created as a platform for connection. To provide unlimited opportunities for users to network, sharing both ideas and information. We can meet and talk with people from other countries. We can see, learn, and even experience things from our laptops while in pajamas from home that we may never be able to in real life.
Used an intended, the world wide web provides us access to the whole wide world.
But we shouldn’t expect social media to do what it wasn’t created to do. Technology may be able to facilitate connecting, but it cannot generate true connection. Social media will never be able to replace what it means to be up close and personal with another human being. To show dignity and respect by looking in a person’s eyes while speaking with them. By listening to each other, conveying interest and validation when needed.
That’s what we were created to do.
Instead, we find ourselves blinded by our own one dimensional perspective. We have been rendered incapable of seeing ourselves as we could be. The way God sees us. We are not one, but instead multi-dimensional beings, created in His image. We forget that we have spiritual, emotional, and intellectual components to us in addition to our physical selves.
When we choose to live out our own version of how we see ourselves, we forfeit the best version of who we were actually made to be. We can no longer see God’s version or vision of us and for us. Our ability to see reality also becomes compromised, along with all the truth about ourselves that goes with it. We settle for a dim reflection of who we think we are reflected back to us in a screen.
Our behavior almost always reflects our beliefs.
When we take God out of the picture, our view of ourselves and others becomes distorted. We no longer see value or purpose when we look in the mirror or at those around us. It becomes really easy at that point to use every opportunity for self-preservation or self-promotion.
As humans, our natural born tendency is to behave in ways that are self-destructive and/or hurt other people. We don’t consider the ways we inadvertently use our words to devalue others to try and increase our own worth. Sadly, being face to face may enable us to control what comes out of our mouths simply for fear of confrontation or what others may think of us. But it can’t change what is in our hearts.
Only God can do that.
We seem to be able to use restraint when we’ve got skin in the game. We know there is a real risk of losing relationships and people we love if we don’t treat them well. When we choose to see value in another human being, we find a way to sift and carefully consider the words we use before they leave our mouths.
Because we know it will cost us something not to.
But it’s open season on anyone and everyone that we don’t value personally. We feel everyone is entitled to our opinion, and argue with anyone that feels differently. We shame and blame anyone that voices a difference of opinion for all that ails this world. We do this all while feeling zero culpability for the wounds our words inflict on people we don’t care for. We begin to think we decide who has value and who doesn’t and then act accordingly.
And that’s where we lose our way.
This is what happens when created things are not fulfilling the intended purposes of their Creator.
You may or may not be familiar with what is probably the most recognizable verse in the Bible. John 3:16. It’s the verse that has been on display everywhere from roadside billboards to signs at sporting events held up by eccentric fans.
The Message, an easier to understand version of the Bible penned by Eugene Peterson, breaks it down and includes verses 17 and 18 . . .
John 3:16-18 “This is how much God loved the world: He gave his Son, his one and only Son. And this is why: so that no one need be destroyed; by believing in him, anyone can have a whole and lasting life. God didn’t go to all the trouble of sending his Son merely to point an accusing finger, telling the world how it was. He came to help, to put the world right again. Anyone who trusts in him is acquitted; anyone who refuses to trust him has long since been under the death sentence without knowing it. And why? Because of the person’s failure to believe in the one-of-a-kind Son of God when introduced to him.“
God decided a long time ago what each and every one of us was worth to Him. He did everything in His power to make a way for us. To ensure that He would never have to live without us or not be in relationship with Him. All He asks of us in return is that we trust Him. That we believe Him and take Him at his word.
Believe what you may be asking? We make it so much harder than it needs to be. To be a believer means to simply agree with God. Trusting that what He says about Himself and about us is the truth. The very reason He created us with a free will was so that we could decide on our own if we will do just that.
Trust Him. Trust that the Creator knows what is best for His Creation.
God knew how much words matter. How powerful they can be. He Himself used them to literally speak the world into being. Throughout history, when He wanted to communicate important messages He did so using the written word. He gave us the Bible, an entire collection of books, telling us over and over again how much He loves us.
Cover to cover, the message never changes.
He reminds us that we are living in a world that is a reflection of us choosing what we want over what God wanted. He offers us a way to see it all redeemed. That one day, if we take Him on His word, we’ll get to see Heaven and Earth as it was supposed to be.
He also knew that we learn best by example. So He sent us a living and breathing version of what He had intended for all of humanity when He created us. He wanted us to know what it looks like to love unconditionally and sacrificially in a way we could best understand. So, He sent us the ultimate example in human form.
He sent us Jesus.
Take a look around our world and it won’t be long before you find the unlimited and far reaching symptoms of sin. It’s easy to look outward and see the bigger offenders in our society. Murder, domestic violence, along with drug and alcohol addiction are all obvious examples of how destructive sinful choices can be. It can be much more difficult to turn inward and focus on the ones that are easier to hide. Including the ways we sin against one another while hiding behind our computers.
The ones that go on in our own homes and more importantly, in our hearts.
All those things we say or do that we can’t take back. The selfish motives and dishonest intentions behind so many of our actions. The way we show up for strangers better in some ways than we show up for our own families. The times we so quickly excuse our own behavior away while judging others harshly. For all the lies we tell ourselves and others about why we do what we do. For all the ways we hurt those we say we love. All of it.
That’s where the real work is.
The problem is, we’re not capable of doing that work on our own. Until we align ourselves with God’s vision for us, we will never be all we were created to be. Until we ask God to show us who we really are, we will forever be at the mercy of our feelings or other people’s opinions. Every time we reject God, we are choosing less than.
Less for ourselves, and less for others.
“For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.” – 1 Corinthians 13:12
So, how do we learn to truly see one another? How can we know what God originally intended for our unique purpose? How can we reclaim His vision for us?
Photo by Matt Noble on Unsplash
hindsight 
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