Can You See This? Maybe Not If You're in the Wrong Spot

NOTE:  This post includes a total of eight photos. Please be sure to scroll down through the end or you’ll miss the surprise.

Joshua trees are rather funky trees in the Yucca genus that grow in the Southwestern US. Like saguaro cactus (the ones you always see in the old Western movies) and puffy cumulus clouds, Joshua trees often come in imaginative shapes that invite people to see interesting images.

These first two pictures show typical Joshua trees. The third one sure looks like a character from a Dr. Suess book to me.

On our way from our vacation place in Wrightwood, CA to Victorville, we always drive by a particular dead Joshua tree that reminded me of something (or someone) the first time I saw it. Here are three shots of this tree from three different angles. What do you see?

You didn’t see much? I’m not surprised. That’s because you are not seeing it from the angle from which I originally saw it.

Scroll down. Now what does it look like?

Obviously, I’m not the only one who sees this as Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. Scroll down to the next pic. Someone took it on himself or herself to decorate “Rudolph” last Christmas.

Then keep scrolling down after the picture.

The point is that if you are viewing something from the “wrong” angle, you can miss seeing something significant.

This phenomenon applies to more than Joshua trees and clouds. I also affects someone’s ideas about Jesus. In my book That’s a Great Question: What to Say When Your Faith Is Challenged, I identify five mental filters used by people who don’t really believe to Bible to make it say what they want it to say. Throughout history, many have used their filters to “reinterpret” Jesus to suit their preferences. Over the years, various writers and theologians have concluded that Jesus was one or more of the following:

·       Only a prophet

·       A political activist

·       A brilliant teacher but not divine

·       An enlightened seeker of truth

·       The original flower child

·       A mystic

·       The eternal essence of universal goodness sublimely manifested in a human personage (whatever that means)

·       The prototype of the new spiritual humanity to come

·       A magician

·       A hypnotist

·       Gay

·       An extraterrestrial

But if you take Jesus at face value – that is, in an unfiltered way – as he is described in the New Testament, you will see him as he really is:  the Son of God, the third person of the Trinity, God in human form, the savior of the world, the only way to truly know God.

Unfortunately, just like some people fail to see Rudolph because they are viewing him from the wrong perspective, many miss the real Jesus because they filter him through their unfortunate presuppositions.

If you haven’t done so in a while. I encourage you to pick up a copy of the New Testament and read what Jesus says about himself in the gospels, asking him to reveal himself to you in a fresh way. It can be life-changing.