“But my servant Caleb—this is a different story. He has a different spirit; he follows me passionately. I’ll bring him into the land that he scouted and his children will inherit it.” – Numbers 14:24

“But my servant Caleb has thought differently, and he has obeyed me completely. He is a different kind of man and he follows me wholeheartedly…” (various translations)

One aspect of photography I find fascinating is the challenge to look at things differently. There is the traditional – direct, front and center – approach, then there is the perspective that causes the viewer to scratch their head and maybe ask a question, or two. Same subject, different point of view.

Do I stand directly in front of a house or a person and frame things up neatly? Or do I get down on the ground and look up, maybe through a patch of flowers or a pile of rocks, capturing a unique angle?

The “why” of this is that now people are asking questions – even if only in their subconscious. And the realization, the intuitive understanding, that things (people, architecture, nature) are not necessarily flat, centered, symmetrical – not always so one-dimensional as presented.

If photography begins to ask questions, or at least suggest questions, then maybe it is doing its job.

This is how one of my favorite Old Testament characters, Caleb, approached his mission as a leader when Moses asked him to scout out the Promised Land. Just about everyone else stood in the traditional tourist posture with a point-and-shoot camera. All they saw was the impossible. All they were able to see was what someone else – maybe their enemies – wanted them to see.

But Caleb looked at the possibilities from a different angle, a different vantage point, a different point of view. He saw the promises of Yahweh.

I do not know what you see, standing right in front of you, but likely as not there are situations and people and landscapes and threats that are nothing but impossible from where you are looking.

But my servant Caleb has thought differently…

So stand somewhere else! Stand with someone else; stand with Jesus. Look from a perspective that is rooted in the promises and the purposes of God.

Think differently; have a different spirit; follow God wholeheartedly. “Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid” (John 14:27).

If you run into anything difficult over this weekend, anything that defeats you or gets you down, stand somewhere else for a moment, stand with Jesus and think differently – DEREK