Many of you have heard this ancient Chinese parable before, but it’s one of my favorites and it’s well worth sharing again.

There was once a farmer who lived in a tiny country village. He was regarded as extremely fortunate because, unlike most of the villagers, he owned a horse. One day, though, his horse got loose and ran away. The neighbors all exclaimed how terrible this was, but the farmer responded, “Burden or blessing—who’s to say at this point?” A few days later the horse returned, bringing two wild horses with it. His neighbors began to rejoice at this surprising turn of events, but the farmer simply said, “Blessing or burden—who’s to say at this point?” The next morning the farmer’s son tried to ride one of the wild horses. However, the horse threw him and broke the son’s leg. The neighbors offered their sympathy at the farmer’s misfortune, but he again replied, “Burden or blessing—who’s to say at this point?” The following week conscription officers arrived in the village to enlist young men for the army. They rejected the farmer’s son because of his broken leg. When the neighbors told the farmer how lucky he was, he answered, “Blessing or burden—who’s to say?”

What this story suggests is that the meaning of a particular event in our lives is largely a matter of perspective. That is, the arrival of two wild horses is viewed by the villagers as fortunate, until it is seen in the context of the son’s broken leg. Likewise, the broken leg seems to be bad in the context of a peaceful village; but when considered from the perspective of conscription and war, it suddenly becomes good. It’s almost as if the event itself is neither good nor bad. It all depends on how you look at it.

Psychologists call this technique “reframing,” and it has proved quite helpful in the area of pastoral counseling. But long before psychologists coined the term “reframing,” the Apostle Paul appears to have already been practicing it. In his letter to the Corinthians, for instance, he points out that we presently view life as “in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face.”

In other words, if we are having a difficult time making sense of things, it could be because we’re not seeing the whole picture. We lack perspective, and hence, when we come across a detour, we tend to think of it as just that—a detour. But when we’ve reached our final destination, suggests Paul, we’ll be able to look back over the journey, and perhaps consider ourselves extremely fortunate that the path suddenly went one way rather than another.

Burden or blessing—who’s to say at this point? Well, according to Paul, we get to say. We have the ability to choose our perspective. We can decide whether to be imprisoned by our circumstances or empowered by them. It all depends on how you look at life.