A WORD FOR TODAY, July 31, 2026
Peggy Hoppes
We pray you are blessed by this daily devotion.
Blessings. Peg
A WORD FOR TODAY, July 31, 2026
“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faith, gentleness, and self-control. Against such things there is no law. Those who belong to Christ have crucified the flesh with its passions and lusts. If we live by the Spirit, let’s also walk by the Spirit. Let’s not become conceited, provoking one another, and envying one another.” Galatians 5:22-26, WEB
M.C. Escher was a Dutch graphic artist. His work explored infinity, reflection, symmetry, perspective, and other mathematical objects and operations, including views that were physically impossible. He drew inspiration from nature early in his career, studying insects, landscapes, and plants, using their features as details in his work. He traveled throughout Italy and Spain, sketching architecture and became interested in the mathematical structure. He never considered himself a mathematician, but interacted with people in the field, pursuing his own research. His work was well known among scientists and mathematicians, but he was not respected in the art world. He had his first exhibition at 70 years old, near the end of his life. His work eventually became more widely appreciated and celebrated and has been part of popular culture since the late twentieth century. It has been used on album covers, t-shirts, stamps, and other marketable items.
One of his most famous pieces is a lithograph print called “Relativity” which he created in 1953. It is a architectural structure in which normal laws of gravity do not apply. Stairways sit at various angles, and figures walk on these different planes. They don’t exist in the same worlds, with some standing on the walls of others as if they are the floor. Even the windows and doors look out to natural places at unnatural angles.
The website escherexplained.com gives this answer to the question “What is the meaning of Relativity?”: “Relativity explores the idea that spatial orientation depends on frame of reference rather than absolute position. Each group of figures experiences their orientation as normal, but these orientations are mutually incompatible when viewed from outside any single frame. The work has been interpreted as a visual expression of Einstein's relativity theory, though it functions primarily as an exploration of perceptual paradox and the subjective nature of up and down.”
Another description of this amazing piece says, “Here we have three forces of gravity working perpendicularly to one another. The three earth-planes cut across each other at right angles, and human beings are living on each of them. It is impossible for the inhabitants of different worlds to walk or sit or stand on the same floor, because they have differing conceptions of what is horizontal and what is vertical. Yet, they may well share the use of the same staircase. On one of the staircases, there are two people walking side by side, and yet they are going completely different directions and are unaware of each other.”
This piece makes me think M.C. Escher was a cultural prophet. The perspective of each character in the picture is dependent on their frame of reference. They see the world in their own plane and can’t see or understand the orientations of the others. Doesn’t that seem like our world today? People can’t communicate because they see the world so differently. Our political persuasions or opinions about the issues of the day make it nearly impossible for us to talk to one another. We define words differently. Though we live on the same plane, it is like we are in the middle of Escher’s Relativity, walking side by side by going in completely different directions.
Thankfully we do live on the same plane, but that means we have to learn how to talk to one another. We have to be willing to listen. We don’t have to accept their point of view, but we must be willing to hear it without making assumptions based on our own perspective. There are things that matter, but we have to remember that we are as much a sinner as our neighbor and we can be wrong. I read a quote from a sermon the other day that said, “Do not defend your mistakes or worship your successes.” Too often, we hold on to our point of view like it is gold, whether it is right or wrong, and reject everyone else’s, making it impossible to find the common bond.
For the Christian, that bond is Jesus Christ. Is your neighbor wrong about something? That may be true, but they will never listen until you reach out to them through the faith you share. In the end you might just discover they have something important for you to hear. Let us remember that Jesus is our focus. As we follow Him, listening to His voice, going only where He leads, we will find that God’s grace will multiply in ways that are beyond our ability to imagine. Those who were considered enemies become brothers, not because we change our mind or because they change but because we see them from a new perspective: through Jesus colored glasses.
I once saw a video that began with a guy grumbling about everything. A kid rode by on his skateboard as the guy was trying to leave his driveway. He struggled to cross a busy intersection. A woman took the parking space where he was about to park. The line at the coffee shop was really long. A guy jumped in front of him for a cookie. His coffee took a few minutes because the shop was so busy. He sat down to wait, and he was approached by an ominous looking man who handed him a pair of glasses. He put them on and they revealed the secrets of everyone he saw. One woman was lonely. The barista was battling addiction. The kid on the skateboard just needed someone who cared.
He wore the glasses for a while, seeing the needs of his neighbors, but was anxious to remove them. It was overwhelming and troubling. How could he possibly help anyone with their problems? What could he do to make life better for everyone else? He opened the glass case and saw the words “Get it?” The glasses helped the man to see the world through God’s eyes. We don’t understand why our neighbors see the world the way they do. Our experiences make us who we are by shaping our beliefs, building our memories, and changing how we view the world. They may be wrong, but we might be wrong, too. We’ll never know if we do not find a way to hear one another. When we begin to see each other through Jesus-colored glasses, we learn how to love more fully even when it seems we live in different worlds.
God is patient and long-suffering, helping us to see the world through His eyes so that we will treat our neighbors with kindness. We live in the Spirit of God, a gift from our Lord Jesus Christ. Kindness keeps us in step with His Spirit, setting aside our opinions and the grumbling about our troubles as we acknowledge that our neighbors see the world differently. Then, as we treat them with kindness, the world will see the good ripe fruit of the Holy Spirit in our lives.
A WORD FOR TODAY, will be posted on Friday. You can find it on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/pages/A-Word-for-Today-Devotional/339428839418276.
To receive this devotional via email, visit https://groups.google.com/g/awordfortoday.