Point of View is Worth 80 IQ Points

The first time I read the quote "Point of View is Worth 80 IQ Points" from Tom Peters in his book "In Search of Excellence", I was in my mid-twenties. A couple of nights ago this quote popped into my head in the middle of the night. It took a couple of days of pondering and this morning the light bulb went off. The message is so simple that I am baffled at why it took more than twenty years to get it.

Cave dwelling puts limitations on thinking. I buried this quote deep inside my brain as I disconnected from the outside world. Some that are close to me describe my life as living in a bubble. Others have said that I appear to be wandering. Both are right. Living in a cave is like living in a bubble. Living apart from the world gives the appearance of "wandering".

When I fell in love and got married, my wife and I moved to California. The "cave" we moved into was a 1,700 square foot home that was hundreds of miles away from family. Both of us were eager to start our lives together. As I look back, I can see that there were some things that I was attempting to escape from. My stubborn ways prevented me from seeing the world differently.

As our family expanded, our home seemed to shrink and we made a decision to add on to it so we could stay in our awesome neighborhood. We had an idea of how we wanted to expand but consulted a neighbor who is a home builder for his opinion. His new point of view inspired us to go in a different direction. We had spent months drawing up ideas and he only needed five minutes and a napkin to show us something amazing that just popped into his head while he walked through our home.

The timing of our cave remodel was not the best as we were also preparing to launch a new business with a group of partners. My wife and I prayed for weeks about what to do. The answer we got did not make financial sense but we went for it. The cave expansion and business start-up would require us to empty our life savings. The economic downturn and our battle with Goliath took its toll but we remained strong in our faith. Every decision we made came from trusting in God.

One of the best choices my wife and I have made was to trust a different point of view from our neighbor. It helped us to understand that there are people out there who have ideas that are better than ours.

If a different point of view is worth 80 IQ points, imagine how smart you can become by looking at the world from God's point of view. For example, many terrorists believe that they will be rewarded with many virgins in Heaven if they kill the infidels. What if they were to discover that while there are virgins in Heaven, there is also no sex? What if they discovered that you don't have to do anything to earn admittance into Heaven? Would they still be willing to commit suicide?

Jesus tells us in Isaiah 55:8, "For my thoughts are not your thoughts, or your ways my ways, says the Lord." When we invite Him into our hearts, it has a profound effect on our point of view.

If you are looking for some IQ points, why not try looking at things from God's point of view? He can feed 5,000 people with a few loaves of bread and some fish. He can make a day's worth of oil burn for eight days (the reason the Jews celebrate Chanukah for eight days). He can exorcise demons from a cave man and show him who he is from God's point of view. He can persuade the cave man that others will follow if he will just come out of the cave and blog about God's point of view. Are you ready from some extra IQ points? Just ask Jesus to share his point of view with you...