诗人寻获这真理。在圣所他明白自己感觉的由来，他不是暂时的提升，仅仅维持几小时或几天，而是得到终身受用的解决办法。事实上，是这经历促使他能够写下我们现在每天都在研读的这篇诗篇。「思想他们的结局」（诗七十三17），这句子表示在此之前他并没有正确地思想。他以前是从片面和不完整的角度去看事物，但现在「在圣所里」他开始看见整幅图画，他说：「然后我明白。」这指的是甚么时候？就是他来到圣所的时候。

阿诺德（Matthew Arnold）的著作有一句话说：「谁平稳地看生命，便能看到生命的整体。」这是多么令人兴奋的话。没有甚么比能够平稳和完整地看待生命更美好。我们生命中很多内在的混乱都是因为我们没有去看生命的整体。有人将偏见定义为「只看到你想看的东西」。有偏见的人说：「我总是这样看。」那正是他们的问题──他们的双眼只专注于事情的一个角度，不让自己看到其他的部分。

「圣经令我们明白生命」

进深研究
弗五1-20；提后一8

1. 我们当如何对自己说话？
2. 保罗怎样劝告提摩太？

祈祷
天父，求您帮助我，因为我不想受偏见或偏执束缚，我要能够完整的去看生命。我们在未来几天还要继续思考这个问题，然而要是没有您的话，我们甚么也做不到。天父，求您帮助我。阿们。

The Power of a New Perspective

Day 221

Seeing life whole

"...Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have..." (v.15)

Bible reading:
1 Peter 3:13-22

13 Who is going to harm you if you are eager to do good?

14 But even if you should suffer for what is right, you are blessed. "Do not fear their threats[a]; do not be frightened."[b]

15 But in your hearts revere Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect,

16 keeping a clear conscience, so that those who speak maliciously against your good behavior in Christ may be ashamed of their slander.

17 For it is better, if it is God's will, to suffer for doing good than for doing evil.

18 For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God. He was put to death in the body but made alive in the Spirit.

19 After being made alive,[c] he went and made proclamation to the imprisoned spirits—

20 to those who were disobedient long ago when God waited patiently in the days of Noah while the ark was being built. In it only a few people, eight in all, were saved through water,

21 and this water symbolizes baptism that now saves you also—not the removal of dirt from the body but the pledge of a clear conscience toward God.[d] It saves you by the resurrection of Jesus Christ,

22 who has gone into heaven and is at God's right hand—with angels, authorities and powers in submission to him.

Message

As Christians we ought never to forget that the message of the Bible is addressed primarily to the understanding; it enables us to understand life. Because of the Bible, we are able to give a reason for the hope that is within us.

The psalmist found the truth of this. In the sanctuary he discovered an explanation for the way that he felt. He was not given a temporary lift that would stay with him for a few hours or a few days - he was given a solution that would stay with him for the rest of his life. It was this, in fact, that caused him to write the psalm we are focusing upon day by day. The words: "Then I understood their final destiny" (Psa. 73:17) suggest that previously he had not been thinking correctly. He had been seeing things from a partial and incomplete perspective, but now "in the sanctuary" he began to see the whole picture: "Then I understood". When? Then - when he came into the sanctuary.

There is a line in one of Matthew Arnold's writings that goes like this: "Who saw life steadily, and saw it whole." What a delightful phrase this is. Nothing can be more wonderful than to see life steadily and to see it whole. Much of the inner turmoil we go through in life comes about because we do not see life as a whole. Prejudice has been defined as "seeing only what you want to see". People who are prejudiced say: "I have always seen it that way." That's their problem - their eyes are fixed on just one facet of an issue and they will not allow themselves to look at the other sides.

"The Bible enables us to understand life"

Prayer
O Father, help me, for I don't want to be in bondage to prejudice or bigotry - I want to see life whole. We must work this issue out together over these next few days, for apart from You I can do nothing. Help me, Father. Amen.

Further study
Ephesians 5:1-20
2 Timothy 1:8

1. How are we to speak to ourselves?
2. What did Paul admonish Timothy?

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