Perspective Takes Time

Gaining a proper perspective takes time. This struck me when I read about 1968, on its 50th anniversary, in 2018. We can now see seeds sown then that are bearing fruit (some pretty bad fruit) now.

We’ve just experienced a year or so of pandemic. There have been previous pandemics, and a Wall Street Journal article helps to put them in perspective. The “Spanish Flu” (which, by the way, started in Kansas) is dated as 1918, while COVID is dated as 2019. The increased death rates associated with those two events are compared, and we have a lot to be thankful for. Yes, the death rate in the US jumped 16% in 2020 after 90 years of improvement. The most recent time the death rate jumped more than that was 1918, and it was worse (1929, by the way, was much less).

That’s part of the perspective. It could have been much worse. Deaths in that time took place largely in younger people, and the way that they died was often marked by bloody eruptions. This is not to discount the sadness of death in older people, or to discount dying because of lung failure, as happened so many times this past year. Death is of the enemy, no matter how happens, or at what age. But as a part of the national psychology, 1918 was more horrific.

One thing that works against this perspective is that we now live in the information age. We receive more blasts of (or, “blasted”) information that our brains can process. We spout facts without context, or, that aren’t facts at all. The media is less a dispenser of truth than a generator of hysteria. And, we lose perspective.

We’ve been through a tough time, and the 100 year lesson teaches us that we have much to be thankful for. But there are even more important perspectives: Biblical, and eternal.

First, Biblically, our God as been faithful to His purposes and to His people for generation after generation. He has provided deliverance from countless, seemingly impossible predicaments, none greater than providing salvation so that we could be reconciled with Him. 

Second, eternally, we look forward to a future in which there will be pandemics, and no death. This present time will be regarded as a moment in time, and the sorrows of these days will be remembered no more. In that day, the “old” will be regarded as young - forever young, always in fellowship, eternally blessed. Perspective. We need more it, but it takes time.