Perspective
The morning was bright and sunny when we walked outside our hotel in Duluth last Thursday, so Ray, Donna, and I decided to spend the morning outside. Our hotel is just out of sight beyond the left side of this photo.
Duluth Ship Canal connects Lake Superior with Duluth harbor just south of the string of hotels. North and south piers extend along both sides of the canal which is spanned by the Aerial Lift Bridge. That structure, begun in 1901, dominates the Duluth skyline and is pictured on postcards and T-shirts and the like. You can see the four main structures of the bridge in the photograph below: two upright towers, an upper truss, and a roadway along the bottom. People drive across the roadway portion of the bridge to cross the Duluth Ship Canal between Duluth (seen at right in the photo below) and Minnesota Point (at the left).
A lighthouse stands at the end of each pier. We walked along the north pier to the North Pier Lighthouse.
From the concrete base of the lighthouse on the north pier, we could see this view of the lighthouse on the south pier.
In our hometown of Gainesboro, people keep up with the weather. In Duluth, they keep up with the weather and the schedule of ships coming into the canal. After all, you can mess up your schedule if you end up on the wrong side of the canal when a ship comes in.
As we walked away from the canal area to head out for other Duluth sightseeing, we all heard a loud horn but Donna was the only one curious enough to look back and see why. That’s when we all turned back to see the roadway of the Aerial Lift Bridge rising. We walked back to the canal to join the other spectators and caught sight of a ship coming closer and closer to the canal.
We saw it pass the North Breakwater Light . . .
. . . and the South Breakwater Light.
Long before the massive ship reached the Aerial Lift Bridge, the bridge’s roadway had risen all the way to the top truss.
The ship reached the bridge . . .
. . . and floated on beneath it . . .
. . . before turning into Duluth harbor.
Then slowly the bridge began its descent . . .
. . . to the place where it had been before and waiting cars began to cross it again.
I don’t know how to raise and lower a bridge or how to steer a giant ship in a straight line through a canal. Last Thursday I watched people created in the image of God do things they know how to do, things I don’t have a clue about how to do.
As I snapped pictures of the back of the ship as it passed in front of me, . . .
. . . a man standing on deck caught my eye. Let me zoom in so you can see him. While I was busily capturing on camera the impressive scene before me, he was capturing the moment, too. However, his was a very different perspective from mine.
Only God has perfect perspective. Only God sees every scene from every angle. Let’s remember that our perspective is limited and that the perspective of those around us is limited, too. And let’s be grateful that God reveals His perspective to us through His Word.
Therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God,
to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice,
acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship.
And do not be conformed to this world,
but be transformed by the renewing of your mind,
so that you may prove what the will of God is,
that which is good and acceptable and perfect.
For through the grace given to me I say to everyone among you
not to think more highly of himself than he ought to think;
but to think so as to have sound judgment,
as God has allotted to each a measure of faith.
Romans 12:1-3