We Don’t Know We Have It!

By February 14, 2022Public Blog

Riddles are intriguing. A riddle is a verbal puzzle that can be defined as a mystifying, misleading, or puzzling question posed as a problem to be solved or guessed.

Even Samson used a riddle when trying to outwit some Philistines. Samson’s riddle is found in Judges 14.

“What is sweeter than honey?
And what is stronger than a lion?”

There is a riddle that, when solved, brings meaning to all of life. Can you solve it correctly?

What does every person have but few know that they have it or can identify it?

What is it that we all have but don’t know we have it? It is a worldview! The Disciple Nations Alliance defines worldview as the way people think about life. They go on to explain why most people don’t know what worldview they have because a worldview is made up of unconscious assumptions about who they are, what life is about and how the world works.

One’s worldview is extremely important because it shapes all of our beliefs and values and drives all of our actions. Yet, one cannot see his/her worldview nor the worldview of another person. We can say that all worldviews are invisible. Allow me to explain.

I believe the best way to describe a worldview is to think about it as a lens. I wear contact lenses. I take these lenses out of a solution and insert them into each eye. Once I put them on each eye, I no longer see them. That is because I look through the lenses, not at them.

However, when I look through my contact lenses, everything I look at is affected. The lenses cause me to see things in a way that is completely different than when I look at them without the contacts in place.

If the prescription for the lenses is not right, everything I look at is distorted from what it actually is. The problem is that I cannot see nor know that the contacts have the wrong prescription. I simply look through them and see things different than if I had the correct lenses in my eyes.

As I wear my contact lenses, protein deposits will build up on them. Again, I don’t see these deposits but they, too, will distort everything I look at. This is because I look through my lenses and not at them.

When I have an eye exam and the doctor prescribes the right lenses for me and I keep them clean, I am sometimes surprised as I look through them and see everything clearly. My whole world changes and I see things as they actually exist.

Your worldview is like my contact lenses. You don’t look at your worldview. You look through it and it affects how you interpret every aspect of your life. Think about your worldview as a lens on your mind that causes you to interpret and make sense of everything.

From the time we are born, our worldview lens is shaped by our educational experiences. Unfortunately, because we are all born sinners, we develop our worldview lenses with a worldly, faulty prescription. At the same time, our worldview lenses become increasingly corrupted by secular ideologies that bombard us each and every day much like the protein deposits that build up on my contacts.

We end up developing beliefs and values based on a faulty lens. Because we develop beliefs and values by looking through our faulty worldview lens, we make decisions that create a secular culture.

There is another thing that we must understand when it comes to one’s worldview. Because we don’t consciously choose our worldview and our worldview is personal, any criticism or attack on our beliefs and values is taken as an attack on our personhood. So we end up staunchly defending our worldview even though it might be faulty.

Here is the big problem. Studies show that the vast majority (93%) of adults in our country do not have a biblical worldview. This means that these adults have a secular worldview. When we view any area of life through a secular worldview lens, everything we look at will be distorted from reality. However, we will be convinced that the way we view life and make decisions is the correct view.

The only way that we can have correct vision when it comes to how we look at life and make sense of the world, is to put on correct lenses. This can only happen when we read, study and meditate on God’s Word. As I wrote in last week’s blog, we must take up daily residence in the Bible. Only then will we develop a biblical worldview lens through which we view all of life.

As we study God’s Word and renew our minds by taking every thought captive to it, we will be amazed when we begin to see and interpret life from an absolute truth perspective. Life will make sense like it never did before. When this happens, we will be equipped to give a biblical worldview education to our children and grandchildren.

It is time for an eye exam and be fitted with biblical lenses with which we will finally be able to see and interpret life correctly.

 

Glen Schultz

Author Glen Schultz

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