Last year, I had the opportunity to travel the world which meant that a lot of my time were spent in airports. Waiting, standing, and even sleeping. There was a lot of moments of stillness where I got to observe and reflect life and where I see myself going.
I remember I was in one of those deep moments when I started seeing people running around and I could feel the frustration and agitation fill the room.
What had happen was that our flight got delayed and because of that it threw everyone for a loop. But for some reason I kept my peace. I knew I was going to be taken care of and that I would reach my destination no matter what.
I wasn't in a hurry. I have a place and all I have to do is wait.
I saw people running around trying to find out if they can get to their connecting flight or if not trying to see if they can find a place in another flight. This was increasing the worry and anxiety and frustration in the room. And the more worried people, the more it fills the atmosphere. It kind of became a never ending loop.
I started to think and contemplate and observe.
If, for one second, the security of our place gets questioned or disrupted, we react, or we get defendant.
Security is one of the most deepest need to people.
When people don’t feel secure, they will do everything in their power to get that emotion.
We are run by our emotions whether we actually realize it or not. It’s not our fault, it’s in our biology. We are actually designed to be influenced by our emotion. And if we realize that, perhaps we can begin to see real transformation.
It’s interesting to see when Jesus walked on the earth, He never really talked about dealing with our emotions. Even the teachings of the New Covenant authors, little did they emphasize changing our emotions.
What they did emphasize is changing our perception.
Because our perception defines emotion
If our perception is lowered, our emotion will be lowered to the level of our perception. And when our emotion is lowered, we enter into survival mode.
And then we blame.
We chuck it off to our feelings as to why we are having a bad day but that’s never the solution. Blame is never a great plan for success because the moment we cast off blame, we enter into a powerless state. We victimized ourselves which then will perpetuate even more pain in our life.
This is probably why Jesus continue to disrupt our perception of reality. He disrupts it so that He can bring it higher. Because if He can elevate our perception, our emotions will be elevated to the level of our perception.
So when He said, “Don’t worry about what you need tomorrow because if the Father takes care of the lilies of the field, he will surely take care of you,” what was He doing?
He’s elevating our perception. When we don’t feel secure, there’s a reminder for us to take a hold of, that if the lilies of the field are taken care of by the Father, then we will certainly be taken care of.
He’s taking us out of survival mode and bringing us to a far greater reality.
We have to come to a realization that if we have any hopes of changing our emotional states, specially our survival emotions, we have to start changing our perception.
So the invitation is, “Repent (change your perception) for the kingdom of God is at hand (a far greater reality is available for you to trust).”