I was studying Matthew 8 this morning and came across Jesus deliverance of the demon-possessed men He met in the region of the Garderenes. The bible records that the demons in the men recognised Jesus straight away and they started screaming, (but later calmed down when they realised who they were talking to, lol) . They realised Jesus was going to set those men free of them, and so they begged to go into the herd of pigs that was a distance away.

Jesus obliged them. The bible records that the herd ran violently into the sea and drowned.

It occurred to me that some righteous people owned the herd of pig or some part of it. It was probably a source of income and livelihood for someone somewhere. But they suffered loss that day…

Gods lens is so powerful to see life through, if not we will be needlessly angry in times when we should express the deepest joy, which usually wouldn’t make any sense to the average man.

Even if those pigs were up to 100, the souls of two strange men were worth the loss from Gods own perspective. As I meditated deeper, the Holy Spirit said “even if it was just one man”. It just so happened that they were two.

Believe it or not, sometimes, really awful situations in life hold opportunities for souls to come home. Not in a way that God weighs some good to exchange for souls, but in a way that it actually costs us all something; our convenience, our reputation, and in this case, our material possessions too.

We read of a similar case with Mary who broke her jar of expensive oil on Jesus, the bible tells us that teachers of the law looked and even some disciples looked at that action and they saw waste. They believed the oil could’ve been sold and the money used to feed the poor.

And we cannot say they were wrong in their thought, but weighing it through Gods lens, they saw waste when Jesus saw His burial rights.

Sometimes we measure wrong not only on moral grounds, but from Jesus perspective.

We could argue for these people and say they hadn’t been privileged to receive the mind of God as we do now according to 1 Corinthians 2:16, but now that we have it, how much of it is evidenced in how we see and interpret situations of life?

Any person, including the disciples who witnessed the deliverance of the two men was posed with two perspectives; Loss of livelihood or freedom of two men.

Similarly, any person, including the disciples who witnessed the anointing of Jesus was posed with two perspectives; waste of expensive perfume or the burial rights of a man headed to the cross. (Heck! It didn’t have to be Jesus burial rights, He is worth everything valuable poured and given to Him, but I digress.)

Spiritual myopia will cost us a lot more than we often think, hence why it is my prayer that our hearts will always be tuned to see Gods perspective in everyday life; the freedom of souls over our convenience, reputation and material possessions, the surrender of all to God over faux concern for ourselves or the poor.

Denying ourselves, taking up our crosses and following Jesus means that we could’ve been the owners of the herd of pigs that got possessed and drowned in the sea, and if indeed it was ours, would we be part of those asking Jesus to leave?