Guest Writer Monday...Here is Sam!

Guest Writer Monday! Let me introduce you to Sam! Sam is at the UofA finishing up her creative writing degree. We met at church and my boys always loved it when she was available to babysit. Sam has a zest for enjoying the small things in life. She is fun, uber-smart, and constantly wearing a grin. Savor her words and leave her some love!

"From the Fish Bowl"


Recently, my roommate and her best friend bought fish that both live in a large glass bowl on our kitchen table. One of them is a calico goldfish, and the other is a black bug-eyed goldfish. I think the bug-eyed one is my favorite, simply because he is so ugly and he makes me laugh. It’s funny how entertained we have become by these fish! We all sat down to eat dinner one night, and we were not speaking to each other for a good two or three minutes because we were just staring at the fish. With the way the bowl is shaped, when a fish is swimming around on the other side, he looks four times as large as he actually is (and therefore my bug-eyed friend has even bigger eyes and looks like a hammerhead from the rear).

The fish are funny because they will sometimes swim to the side of the bowl and just stare out at us. Calico had a staring contest with one of my friends for a good forty-five seconds. As they stare at our world, though, I wonder how much of it they can actually see. What would our kitchen look like from the inside of a fish bowl? Can these fish comprehend the fact that there is a big wide world outside their sphere of swimming?

Have you ever considered that we might be living in a fish bowl of sorts?

First Corinthians 13.10, 12 says, “but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away… For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.” (ESV)

So often, I find my perspective is focused on the here and now. My worries consist of doing schoolwork, budgeting my limited finances, figuring out after-college plans, wondering whether or not I will get married, and so on. I strive to have a good reputation among my peers, and I wonder what other people think of me. I work to achieve happiness here in this life, and my energies go towards various forms of success.

Not that these are terrible things to engage in – if I didn’t worry about schoolwork, I wouldn’t be motivated to get it done and I would lose my scholarship, which would then lead to losing any type of income I have. I have been given earthly blessings that I want to be a good steward of. These things are important in a sense, but I am continually convicted that they should not be my primary concerns.

The Word says, “So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal” (2 Corinthians 4.18, NIV). When I think about what I focus most of my attention on, I find that the majority of it is temporary. The ancient Egyptians buried royalty with their treasured possessions and expensive jewels and even with servants, all because they thought they could take those things into their next life. You can go to those tombs today, though, and all of those things are still there, rotting and disintegrating. There are temporal things that are definitely important in my life, but I want most of my time to be invested in the things that are going to last much longer. My perspective of life needs to go much farther than what I see inside my little sphere of the world I live in. I am reminded even more of where I belong when I think of Philippians 3.20, which tells us that “our citizenship is in heaven.” I can’t necessarily image what that will look like, but I want to shift my perspective so that I am living for eternal rewards, not earthly ones. Matthew 6.19-20 says, “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal” (NIV).

One last passage I want to throw your way: 2 Corinthians 5.1-2: “Now we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, an eternal house in heaven, not built by human hands. Meanwhile we groan, longing to be clothed with our heavenly dwelling” (NIV). This always convicts me; inwardly, do I really desire to be in heaven with Jesus? Or is my perspective so limited that the only value I see is the here and now?

If this metaphor of our lives as being lived in a fish bowl holds true, then think of the world of the eternal that we are currently unable to see and experience! One day, dear friends, we will stand together at the throne of our Lord and truly experience all of the riches He has in store for us, and we will be able to see beyond our fish bowl.