What is real?

When I stub my toe it really hurts. When I see my wife I am really happy. When I forget lunch I am really hungry. However, my question is this, what is real?

I look at life and I think of all the different things I supposedly know to be real or true. 'I know' if I jump off a cliff I will fall and probably die. 'I know' if don't brush my teeth they will get cavities. 'I know' that if I hold a funny face too long my face will stay that way...or will it?

What is real?

Here is what I think. I think that reality changes with our experiences and perspective. Think of it like this, when we were born we were all given a blank piece of paper. As we grow we add colors to our paper. We mix some colors to make new colors. What we see, our perspective, is our picture in a way it is our reality. It is our attitude, our outlook on life. It is one of the things that make us individuals. This being said what is truth? We have our own personal reality that we live in, but there must be one true reality one where the colors are used perfectly. There must be one standard. It all points to one person, and that would be Jesus Christ.

So where are we? We are living in our own realities. We see what is in front of us and we take it to be real. We take it to be truth but is it? The more I learn to step back and look at life as a whole, to look at where I came from, why I am here, and where I am going, the more I feel I am coming closer to that picture of Christ. Consequently it also makes it easier for me to go through the times that are hard. It helps me to realize the hard times will come to an end, and without them I won't have all the colors I need for my picture.

So what about the guy sitting next to me, what is real for him? I feel that everyone has at the very least one part of truth in their reality or in their perspective. Every person has one part of this grand picture. For me to see truth I have to view what I see as my reality, but that isn't it I need to see what others have learned from there experiences as reality. When I was little I heard once the saying that everyone is your superior at something, meaning that you have something to learn from everyone. I believe it.

This life is given as a time for man to prepare to meet God. It is given for us as a trial period so we can prove our worth. If we take this life and use it to learn, God will bless us in the life to come. So how do we learn? We become like Christ.

Why is Christ the standard? Christ was given a blank piece of paper at birth. The same as us, Christ had to start with forgetting who he was before and not knowing exactly what he had to do. Christ learned little by little. First Christ had to grow through his experiences and trials. He started blending colors and shading in his paper from his personal and perfect life. He also taught us to love to show compassion. Then Christ practiced what he preached. In the Garden of Gethsemane He did something that demonstrated this love. He took every color and put it on His paper. He took our sins upon him, but it didn't stop there. He took our experiences upon Himself, that he might fully understand the realities through which we trek. He took our pains and sicknesses. He took upon himself so much that he bled out of each poor. He gave a perfect gift of compassion. All so we could have the chance to learn how to paint.

As I started this I wanted to write bring across two points of view. One, that most of the problems we have that seem so big to us in our own personal realities, most of these problems only exist in our reality. In other words most problems that we worry about our only in our minds eye. Secondly I wanted to bring across the point that everyone has something to teach us, and that we can learn from every situation we are in. I didn't talk about them as much as I would have liked but it's alright, I got to speak about Christ.

Until Next Time

Fred

31 August 2009