The World’s Way of Thinking - No. 32
We weren’t made for the world we live in.
We weren’t made for a Box-and-Line (Note 8) world. Yet we have to look around us and accept that the entire world is increasingly box-and-line. We weren’t made for job titles, careers in corporations, certifications, accreditation, employee handbooks, roles in organizations or political parties, to name a few. Somehow, we have bought into the lie we have been sold, that our lives should fit into a massive network of systems we call the modern world. It is built around a way of thinking that is antithetical to the way of life we were created for. We can still live in this modern world, but we need to learn to live from a different way of thinking. We were made to live daily from the reality of who God is and who He created us to be. From that place, we can be in any system without being fully a part of it, without adopting its way of thinking.
“Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.” - Romans 12:12.
The patterns of the world are built on the world's way of thinking. That is why we must be transformed by the renewing of our minds. Unless we change our ways of thinking, we won't be able to know God's will. The world’s way of thinking is often thought of as acceptance of sin and evil, but it's so much deeper than that. Since the beginning of time, the world's way of thinking has been rooted in man's attempt to get by without God. Adam and Eve took matters into their own hands so that they could take back some of the control God had that they didn’t. They wanted to be like God and understand good and evil. Fast-forward through all of human history, and each culture has attempted this same struggle in its own way.
Today, most people don’t practice the myriad of ancient religions and idolatry because we culturally believe we have overcome the need for religion. Now we know what causes rain to fall, droughts to happen, and sickness to spread. We can heal most livestock and people without the intervention of God. We have medicine and technology. Famine is rare in the developed world, so are tribal wars and unknown diseases. We wanted control, and in many ways, we have found it. But has man's nature and thinking truly changed? It is undoubtedly more sophisticated, but human nature is still fundamentally the same. That means that man is still trying to get by without God. How that shows up in our modern world is that we have created technology to give us the control we want so badly. We have found that control through the application of scientific and systems thinking. It has worked so well for us that it has, in many ways, replaced the societal role that religion used to play in our lives. We have created a new kind of religion in our age-old attempt to get by without God. But this religion is not putting faith in a new god; it is putting faith in ourselves.
Since the beginning of time, man has been trying to get by without God. - Scott Dohner
It's worth considering what a religion really is. The best definitions I have found distill it down to a set of beliefs, practices, experiences, and organizations built around what a group of people considers to be most important. Those beliefs and practices shape identity, meaning, and concepts of right and wrong for that group of people. By that definition, it is hard to argue that we haven’t built a new religion for ourselves.
In ancient times, the deceiver used false gods to hide from people the one true God. If they worshiped these god’s they were promised a version of success; their crops would grow, they would win battles, and their family would be protected. Today, most people don’t worship literal idols and believe in false gods, but we do seem to have fallen for a new type of false god. We give our lives to the pursuit of our modern definition of success; in many ways, our slavish pursuit looks a lot like worship. We don’t think of a free market economy as a god, but we do believe that if we work hard enough, we will be rewarded with financial resources and protection from so many of the evils in the world. I won’t go as far as to say it is actually a new religion, but it has taken over the place in our lives that God wants to occupy. Financial and physical security come from God, not retirement accounts, reliable salaries, and big houses in safe neighborhoods. I am not saying any of those things are bad in and of themselves, only that our thinking is broken and our faith and attention are on the wrong things.
Now God feels very optional. We have reliable food sources, temperature-controlled houses, endless entertainment, easy transportation, and predictable sources of income. What more do we really need? Most people are relatively happy with this arrangement. Throw in some cool vacations, nice toys, and a few opportunities for achievement and recognition in life, and most people are content. How is that not the rat in the maze, or the hamster on the wheel? Could that really be the life we are made for? We have been seduced into ignoring the spiritual reality of our lives and have settled for the modern world's false gods and idol worship. The cost is that the deceiver has stolen our birthright from us. He has convinced us that we are not truly sons of God. Or at the very least, that our identity as sons of God is an intellectual and theological idea, not a practical everyday reality. We have bought into the lie and allowed our minds to be shaped by the thinking of the world.
The Problem is Order
The problem isn’t that all of modern thinking is wrong. The problem is that it is out of order. When we have the right order in our thinking, we focus on what truly matters first. The world's way of thinking doesn’t know what really matters most, so they chase outcomes, achievements, and goals. When we accept that there is no separation between the sacred and the secular (note 12) and that the organizing model of creation is identity (Note 6), then we must embrace that our spiritual transformation (note 17) is the first priority of our lives. In other words, the first step is always becoming who we were created to be. If we focus first on achieving things, then we are out of order. That is how so many people build big businesses, achieve wealth, win awards, and end up miserable with a wake of broken relationships behind them.
Has Amazon brought more order to chaos to the world? They are one of the most well-organized organizations in the world, but what does their wake look like? What is their impact on the people who work for them? What is their impact on the environment? How have they shaped the lives of their customers? The same questions can be asked of most of the major organizations of our time. The answers usually lead us to realize that while they are highly organized, influential, and effective, they have left a wake of destruction behind them.
One of the most important processes we have to go through in our modern lives is unbaking our minds (note 2 and 3) from the world's way of thinking. In the Christian world, people often think that the world's way of thinking is primarily about accepting sinful behavior, but that is a pharisaical definition. The world’s way of thinking is all about having the wrong order. In an attempt to get by without God, our modern world has architected an understanding of life where man is the highest power. As followers of Jesus, we have to be very skeptical of any way of thinking that originates in an attempt to understand life and creation apart from God. Thinking that is based on man's attempt to get by without God is like a disease to our minds; if we don’t get rid of it, it will grow and destroy us.
So many people want to follow God, but cannot be peaceful without financial security. That is because the world's thinking tells us that if we don't have X amount of money, then we are a failure and are not safe. It believes that we are responsible for our own security. That is a house divided, someone trying to have the world's thinking and Gods at the same time. Some people who want to follow God but struggle to love themselves unless they achieve impressive things. That is because the world's thinking says our value is in our accomplishments. That thinking doesn’t mix with God's thinking. He says our value can’t be earned, it’s inherited.
There are so many layers to the world's way of thinking and how it impacts us. Does what we do for a living, where we live, and the things we have affect our sense of identity? If you lost it all tomorrow, would your sense of security feel threatened? What are the goals you are pursuing in life, a trip you want to go on, a house you want to buy, or a career milestone? Most of our priorities are shaped by the world's way of thinking and not by who God created us to be and how he created us to live.
We have been praying the 30 days of courageous prayers, and one line stood out to me significantly over and over again. “Let your priorities come before my desires.” As I pondered and prayed through that line, I could see so many areas of my life where I put my desires before God’s priorities. I went to a meeting recently with a possible client, and the whole time we talked I found myself thinking and praying about what God wants to do in this man's life. I didn’t care about whether we worked together. I had to praise God afterward when I realized we never talked business, because I saw that in another area of my life, His priorities came before my desires. I have been in a process for years of letting God re-order my thinking and my heart. Moments like this show me the fruit of what He is doing.
We were made to live from the identity God created us for, and that requires us to go on a journey of transformation to become who we were created to be. Along that journey, we become people whose hearts and thinking become reordered. Without this re-ordering process, we end up stuck trying to blend God’s thinking with the world's thinking, and that is like trying to mix oil and water.
- John Walt
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