An All-Knowing and All-Seeing Perspective
By Jessica Brodie
Have you ever witnessed something you’re sure you saw correctly, only to realize later that perhaps it didn’t happen that way at all?
A couple of years ago I was a passenger in a car on the interstate when I saw in the rearview mirror a small car zip by and cut off a motorhome. The motorhome driver swerved, sending the vehicle out of control. The motorhome flipped over itself into the air before finally coming to rest in a crumpled heap, its tail half off the road. Miraculously, no one was hurt, but it looked like a scene out of an action movie. The wreckage felt surreal.
Yet, talking with my mom, who’d been driving, she recalls it a bit differently—she doesn’t remember it flipping multiple times. She saw the swerving sedan and the wreckage, but she was busy driving us out of the way. Her perspective was not the same as mine.
Now I wonder if what I’m sure I saw was exactly what happened or whether my imagination amplified the details somehow.
It’s not just me—a friend of mine and her sister both witnessed a car crash. In their report to police, she gave one account, but her sister’s was not quite the same.
It’s not uncommon for people who witnessed a crime to describe the suspect to the police sketch artist in a variety of different ways, whether vastly different memories of skin color, height, even whether the suspect had a big nose or what he was wearing.
The way we see things isn’t always the way things are, and just because we believe something to be true doesn’t mean it is. And it’s important to remember that as we try hard to live in community with people around us—especially when people have vastly different opinions about politics, religious values, and more.
For example, I’m a Christian, and I feel strongly about my convictions. My emphasis on “loving like Jesus” shapes the way I vote, the work I do, the way I interact with my neighbors, how I react when something bad happens, and more. But I can’t assume that because someone else votes or interacts or reacts differently that they are not Christian, or even not a “real” Christian. They might have a completely different perspective on things.
The other day I was driving with my son, who has his beginner’s permit. Cam was behind the wheel and going the speed limit when a car began to tailgate us, clearly wanting him to go faster.
“Ugh, don’t they realize I’m a beginning driver?” Cam asked.
“They probably don’t, and that’s why you always want to keep that in mind and give people the benefit of the doubt when you’re on the road,” I told him. “For example, if someone’s driving fast, maybe they’re not a lunatic but racing to get to the hospital. If someone’s going super slow, maybe they just had a new baby and are driving home from the hospital for the first time.”
Or the grumpy cashier—maybe she just found out her husband has cancer.
The nosy neighbor—maybe he’s lonely or has a mental illness.
We never know what someone is going through. We cannot assume the worst about their character.
In 1 Corinthians 13:6-7, the apostle Paul reminds us that love “does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things” (NRSV). That means assuming the best and choosing to have faith. It’s choosing to trust that God will handle things. In Ephesians 4:2-3, Paul urges us to maintain “all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, making every effort to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.”
Jesus tells us to look at our own sin before judging someone else. As Jesus says in Matthew 7:3, “Why do you see the speck in your neighbor’s eye, but do not notice the log in your own eye?”
We don’t have the all-knowing and all-seeing perspective God does. Just like we can look at a situation and see one truth (like when I witnessed the motorhome flip!), our neighbor might look at the same thing and see something else—but God sees the full reality, the full truth.
Let’s bear with each other in love and patience, in humility, in faith. God will sort it all out, but our job is to lead with love.
