How To Put Things In Perspective
I once met a Sudanese Lost Boy.
If you don’t know about the Lost Boys, in the late 1980s, ~20,000 boys fled Sudan because of civil war. They walked over 1000 miles to reach refugee camps in Kenya and Ethiopia. Some of the boys were as young as six or seven.
In 2001, a few thousand Lost Boys came to the US. I met one in Dallas in 2007 while he was going to college.
He shared a one page essay with me. It was straightforward and simple, and I could tell that English wasn’t his first language. And maybe that made it even more effective.
In the essay, he wrote about how the Lost Boys would travel together in groups. One day he woke up to a lion eating one of his friends. He sneaked away while the lion was distracted.
He also mentioned they would sometimes need to cross rivers. Some boys would drown because they couldn’t swim. Others would get eaten by crocodiles.
This young man was a Christian and he was so joyful. I really enjoyed my time with him.
He told me Americans can get so stressed over things as silly as having the wrong toothbrush, but he knew there was so much in life to be thankful for.
count it all joy when you fall into various trials…that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing (James 1:2-4).
There are people who have had more trials than I have, and they are also more joyful.
And there are people who have had fewer trials than I have, and they are less joyful.
It seems to me that the number of trials I have isn’t as important as the way I react to those trials.
By God’s grace, I can count it all joy in the midst of any trial, because each trial is an opportunity to grow and become more complete, lacking nothing.
What do you think?
Joseph