Have you ever noticed how completely different the same thing can look from another perspective?
The other day, I was driving down a road I don’t normally take. It was a road I had passed many times, but I usually traveled another route. Both roads gave me a view of the same beautiful piece of land, but the views couldn’t have been more different.
From the road I normally take, the land is breathtaking. You can see layers and layers of mountains stretching across the horizon—South Carolina, North Carolina, Georgia, Tennessee. The different ridgelines create this beautiful backdrop that makes the whole landscape feel almost unreal.
I’ve looked at that land so many times and thought, That would be the most beautiful place to build a house. But then I drove down that other road. I was looking at the exact same land, but suddenly it didn’t look nearly as beautiful. The mountains weren’t visible in the same way. The backdrop wasn’t there. I couldn’t see the things that had made the view so breathtaking from the other side. And I thought about how often we do the same thing with people—including ourselves. We look at someone from one perspective and decide what we see is the whole picture.
We see their flaws.
We see their mistakes.
We see the way they reacted.
We see the things they struggle with.
We see a social media post and make assumptions about the story behind it.
We see one moment and allow it to define the person. But what if we’re simply standing on the wrong side of the road? I recently read a post from a mom who shared something from her life, and people judged the situation based solely on what they saw in that post. They took pieces of it, interpreted them through their own perspective, and came to conclusions that were completely outside the context and purpose of what she had actually shared. It made me think: Don’t we do this all the time? We see the view in front of us, and we assume we’re seeing the whole landscape.
But God sees the whole thing. God sees what we cannot see. When God looks at us, He doesn’t see the limited view we so often see when we look in the mirror. He doesn’t see only our shortcomings, our insecurities, our failures, or the things we wish we could change.
He sees His creation. He sees His masterpiece. He sees what He created us to be. And sometimes, I need that reminder for myself more than anyone else. I can be so quick to focus on what I can’t do. I notice my weaknesses. I notice where I struggle. I replay my mistakes. I compare myself to other people and convince myself that I’m falling short. The enemy is more than happy to point those things out. He’ll take us down the road that highlights every negative detail and convince us that this is the whole view.
But God sees the other side. He sees the beauty I can’t see yet. He sees the things He planted inside me. He sees what He is growing. He sees what He has in store. He sees the finished picture when all I can see is the unfinished landscape. And maybe that’s what we need to remember when we look at other people, too. What if the person who hurt you is more than the hurt they caused? What if the person who didn’t respond the way you hoped is carrying something you know nothing about? What if the person you’re judging is standing in a place where you simply cannot see the whole picture? That doesn’t mean we excuse wrong behavior. It doesn’t mean we ignore boundaries or pretend hurt doesn’t hurt.
It means we remember that our view is limited. God’s isn’t.
So instead of asking, “What is wrong with them?” maybe we can pause and ask, “How does God see them?” Because God loves them, too. The person who frustrates you. The person who disappointed you. The person who misunderstood you. The person who didn’t treat you the way you thought they should. God sees them as His creation.
And if we believe that we are called to love our brothers and sisters, then perhaps part of that calling is learning to look beyond the view that comes most naturally to us. We are all going to share eternity together. We talk about heaven as paradise, a place where we will live together in the presence of God. So maybe we should start practicing that kind of love here. Maybe we should stop letting one road determine the beauty of the entire landscape. Maybe we should take a step back. Maybe we should look again. Maybe we should ask God to help us see people the way He sees them. And maybe we should ask Him to help us see ourselves that way, too.
Because you are not just the things you struggle with. You are not your worst day. You are not your mistakes. You are not the flaws you spend so much time focusing on. You are a creation of a perfect Savior.
You were handmade.
Handpicked.
Loved.
Chosen.
And there is beauty in you that you may not even be able to see from where you’re standing right now. Sometimes the view changes when you change your perspective. And sometimes, the most beautiful view was there all along.
We just needed to see it from God’s perspective.