I marvel as to how two people can view the same event and yet come away with different perspectives. As the adage goes, no two people see the same thing alike. Just ask the tourists who visit Lock Ness.

     Years ago, a diver submerged himself beneath the turbid waters of Loch Ness. As a boat with a group of tourists passed, the diver raised a four-by-four board above the surface of the water. The tourists subsequently were asked to draw what it is they think they saw. Some portrayed the image as a long, thin neck with a head.

     What this group saw was different from reality because they were not primed to see reality. They had been told that periodic sightings of the Loch Ness Monster often happen. Therefore, the tourists were primed to see what they hoped they would see.

     The same principle holds true for the way we see each other. Consider Peter, Jesus’ disciple. Peter was a hot mess. Peter often put his foot into his mouth. Peter’s greatest faux pas occurred the moment he denied Jesus.

     Yet Jesus saw something in Peter that most of us would have missed. Jesus saw Peter through the lens of his potential rather than through the filter of his past. In fact, Jesus envisioned Peter as the first leader of the church. Jesus viewed Peter as the dynamic preacher who would convince 3000 people on the Day of Pentecost to come to faith in Jesus.

     Part of the reason the Pharisees took great issue with Jesus is because the two parties viewed the people around them much differently. Where the Pharisees saw a broken person with a past, Jesus saw the same individual with the potential of being a broken healer.

     Many people wrote off Bill W. as nothing but a common drunk. Jesus, however, visualized Bill W. as the founding member of Alcoholics Anonymous. Eighty-eight years later, Bill W.’s initiative has helped millions of people worldwide find a pathway to sobriety.

     As disciples of Jesus, we are asked to define people differently than the rest of the world does. Rather than label people by their past, Jesus asks that we envisage their promise. Instead of thinking of others as a lost cause, we are encouraged to see them as a diamond in the rough. As the saying goes, “All saints have a past and every sinner has a future.”