PICTURE:Lars Lentz (iStockphoto.com) “Who am I to be brilliant? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small doesn’t serve the world. There’s nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It is not just in some of us, it’s in everyone. And as we let our light shine, we unconsciously give other people the permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.” -Nelson Mandela

29th July, 2004

ADAM KELSALL

What is the horizon?

The horizon is as far as we can see, but does it really exist? As humans we seem to like to be comfortable so we contain things: is the horizon an effort to contain ourselves? The horizon doesn’t just exist (or not) as a connection between the sky and the sea. Every part of our lives contains a horizon, the place where the unknown and fear meet to create a point we don’t want to venture beyond.

By living with these horizons in our lives we can also create them in others' lives, and, often with the intention of protecting them, we can end up dulling or numbing them to the sharp and sometimes painful reality of life.

Does God want us to live with a horizon mindset? Nelson Mandela, while imprisoned for 27 years, would have observed the same physical horizon for all this time. However his soul knew no horizons. Upon freedom he became president of South Africa and in his inauguration speech stated: “Who am I to be brilliant? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small doesn’t serve the world. There’s nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It is not just in some of us, it’s in everyone. And as we let our light shine, we unconsciously give other people the permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”

By having a horizon mindset, our world becomes smaller than it needs to be; than God wants it to be. We do not create these horizons in our lives one-by-one but exponentially and this moves us away from the path God has laid before us. We follow instead a small-minded narrative of lies about ourselves that we believe to be truths; horizons that we believe are the edge of ourselves but have no reality or right to exist in a child of God.

While Mandela is an amazing example of someone free from the horizon mindset, our world is full of similar souls. Travelling through Thailand recently, I went to an orphanage in the north east. I anticipated (my horizons) a place of sadness and hardship. These boys had faced hardship and poverty, yet the noises they make are of joyfulness and laughter. They carry an anticipation and excitement for a full life ahead. Daily chores are carried out with vigor. As foreigners we were greeted with glee and farewelled with mourning.

At a leprosy mission in Chiang Mai, I met a woman in a wheel chair who looked more dead than alive. Blinded and maimed by the leprosy virus, when asked if we could take her photo, the irony of it caused her to belly laugh with a depth of joy that saddened and delighted me at the same time. At first I didn’t notice, but looking a few minutes later I observed the man treating her was also in a wheel chair, his hands
bandaged.

Job 5:17 says “Happy is the person whom God corrects! Do not resent it when he rebukes you. God bandages the wounds he makes; his hands hurt you, and his hand heals."

The reality of life centres around breathing: one day we start breathing, another day we stop and in between there are plenty of moments that take our breath away. All of us will experience breathlessness through times of tragedy, death of friends and family, illness, betrayal or rejection. These times take us beyond our horizons and into a place where we are unbalanced. Unbalanced, because we have never allowed ourselves to be here before; it’s like a whole new world. While here, we are forced to reassess our horizons and refocus on God in order to regain our balance. If we let God do the work, our horizons will be expanded or even removed and we become more whole, wiser and less horizon-minded people. Our existence becomes bound by God-horizons not small, human-horizons.

Romans 8:15: “For the spirit that God has given you does not make you slaves and cause you to be afraid; instead the spirit makes you God's children and by the spirit's power we cry out to God, Father! My Father!” God’s spirit joins himself to our spirits to declare that we are God’s children. Since we are his children, we will possess the blessings He keeps for His people, and we will also possess with Christ what God has kept for him; for if we share Christ’s suffering, we will also share his glory. Having God-horizons will continue to leave us vulnerable to pain but with the security of the knowledge that God will use this pain to grow us, and with our growing so will those around us. If we asses our horizons independently of God, they will continue to shrink: we will become safer people but less open to moves of God and ultimately become stale and fearful and walk through a life that is so much smaller than God ever wanted for us.

Do you want to live a life bound by horizons that don’t really exist?