![god sees the bigger picture god sees the bigger picture](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/sXfVMCDQBnY/maxresdefault.jpg)
He recognized that God’s purpose was over and through the circumstances.Īs a result, he understood the real importance of what was happening, which in turn shaped his purpose and drive, and his communication to his team, which we see in 8:28: “And I said to them, ‘You are holy to the Lord the articles are holy also and the silver and the gold are a freewill offering to the Lord God of your fathers.” Ezra helped his team to understand that God had a sovereign purpose, and therefore the tasks that they were carrying out were being used by God to fulfill that purpose therefore, their work was holy. He was able to look beyond his own finite, human scope of vision and see the events from God’s perspective. After the proclamation of the letter, Ezra’s initial response is recorded in verse 27: “Blessed be the Lord God of our fathers, who has put such a thing as this in the king’s heart.” His response clearly reveals that Ezra saw God’s hand in all that had happened. But then the king went beyond granting permission, and wrote a letter that provided authority, protection, and significant resources for Ezra (7:11-26). The chapter details how Ezra had been granted permission by King Artaxerxes to return to Jerusalem (with another reminder of God’s hand in that circumstance in 7:6 – “and the king granted him all that he asked, for the hand of the Lord his God was on him”). The lesson emerges in chapter 7, a pivotal chapter in understanding Ezra’s leadership (I touched on this also in another post, Prepare Yourself to Lead).
#God sees the bigger picture how to
In an earlier post, God Has a Plan, I discussed the fact that God has a sovereign plan and purpose, and it is against this backdrop (of the clear evidence of God’s sovereignty) that we learn from Ezra how to see the big picture from God’s perspective, and even how that affects motivation and purpose. However, for a Christian leader, there is an even bigger picture and a more important lesson: seeing the big picture from God’s perspective. Being able to do this will keep him from getting lost among the trees, and will provide the perspective necessary to implement changes and adjustments. In order to see the whole picture, that leader must be able to get on the balcony, zoom out, and get above the forest to be able to see clearly. Like puzzle pieces, each piece of the context, the environment, the organization, or the situation fits into a larger context, and a leader can best see how it fits when viewing the whole picture.
![god sees the bigger picture god sees the bigger picture](https://quotefancy.com/media/wallpaper/800x450/2097139-Francis-Chan-Quote-If-you-want-to-see-the-big-stuff-that-God-has.jpg)
The implication of this illustration is simply that a good leader needs to be able to see the big picture. Part of the purpose of the lesson was to illustrate the importance of “the big picture,” or the master plan, for managing a process, a task, or life itself. Some of the groups had the puzzle box, so they could see their picture, but some of the groups did not (and some had all the correct pieces, but some had the wrong pieces or were missing pieces that served to make a different point). I once used the picture on the puzzle box to illustrate a lesson, by giving a puzzle to each of several small groups of people. It’s a map that lets you see where you want to go. It provides a visual landscape that helps in determining the general context or place where an individual piece belongs. It is the picture on the box that provides the perspective and the vision of what is being assembled. In the process of putting the puzzle together, however, one of the most important components is not the puzzle itself, but rather, the picture on the box. And I have a preferred method of assembly: first turn all of the pieces face-up, setting aside those that have a straight edge (the outside frame) then assemble the outside frame finally, begin to assemble the rest of the pieces, looking first for pieces that more obviously fit in the same section together. I enjoy all kinds of puzzles-word puzzles, number puzzles, brain games, etc.-but in this instance I am specifically referring to jigsaw puzzles, the ones that are pictures cut into hundreds of little pieces that need to be assembled.