On an Easter Sunday when our kids were young, all of our family was together at church and everyone was dressed up. Seeing all the children, grandparents, uncles and aunts looking so good, I really wanted to get the perfect family picture. But by the time we rounded everybody up after the service and were positioning them for the photo, I discovered too late that my kids had changed into their playclothes. I remember how frustrated I was. This was supposed to be my perfect picture. I didn’t want green t-shirts in my picture! At the time, that’s all I saw.
It’s so easy to forget the big picture and let the smallest things in our lives, what so often doesn’t really matter, irritate us to the point of losing our joy. So often we want everything to be perfect, to look just right, to feel just right, to go our way. We forget to enjoy the beauty of the moments in our life. When we see the flaws in our life picture, especially when they fall short of our expectations, that’s all we focus on, and suddenly everything turns negative, and the joy is gone.
We’re not the first to do that. Think about Adam and Eve. They were in a perfect garden—beautiful flowers of every kind, lush fruit to eat everywhere they went, animals of every size and shape. There was no laundry to do! All they had to do was care for this amazing, God-given garden. Then one day Eve listened to the enemy and focused her eye on the one tree in the garden from which God had told them they could not eat. On that day, that tree became the most important thing that she saw and distorted her view of the whole garden. All she could see was what the enemy convinced her that God was keeping from her.
We can’t let what we think are flaws in our lives distort the whole picture. We can’t let one forbidden tree distort the amazing life God has given us. We have to focus on the whole picture, what we do have—the grace and love of God, the gifts and talents He’s given us, the loving relationships, and the abundant provisions. In the long run, the flaws don’t matter at all.
Do you know that picture with the kids in green t-shirts is one of my most treasured possessions today? It captured a memory to enjoy for a lifetime. Don’t live in regret by focusing on what you think is less-than. Don’t be like the man who asked, “Why am I depriving myself of enjoyment?” (Ecclesiastes 4:8). Enjoy what God has given you right now. Soak in the beauty of the moment.