Living in Bubbles

I was visiting with an older lady in the remote town in which I was first assigned as a missionary with Lutheran Bible Translators. She had heard a ‘rumor’. Did I have a toilet inside the house? “Yes,” I told her. She was not impressed. How could we live in the smell?

Everyone has their own perspective based upon their experience. For this lady who did not know about water seal technology, it was inconceivable to have a toilet inside the house.

I am often amazed at the limits of our perceptions, sometimes defined as worldview. The limits of our worldview bubbles are the sum total of all we have lived and learned. I have lived in multiple nations and cultures. When I hear the opinions of today’s politicians, activists and commentators I sometimes think, “They haven’t lived where I have lived or they wouldn’t talk that way!” It is easy to judge from within the limits of my own worldview bubble. My bubble is not big.

The words of Isaiah encourage me, “For My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways, declares the LORD” (Is 55:8). That is a relief. God doesn’t think or act like I do. Rather he offers a bigger purpose through the message of Scripture. From his infinite knowledge-base he sends Jesus as Savior into our limited world, “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life” (Jn 3:16). God’s story of salvation in Scripture is moving throughout the world through the world’s many languages. He calls everyone into His story through Jesus.

I remain trapped within my own perspective – anger, judgement, despair. But God’s ways are not my ways. He offers salvation – life that continues even after life lived within one’s own bubble is over. His bubble is really big.