Sitting on my back porch with a cup of coffee in my hand and my dogs at my feet, savoring the final cool hour of the morning before the Arizona sun heated up the day, I thought to myself, "All is right with the world today."
The sky was a perfect blue with only wispy, scattered clouds thrown in for interest and variation. The birds sang in the neighbors' trees and that pesky lizard that makes its home among the rocks in my yard had yet to show it's menacing face. My muscles cooled from the run I had just completed, able-bodied and feeling good for my age. And the sweet conversations I'd had with both kids just yesterday still hummed in the back of my mind like soothing melodies.
All was right with the world.
But then I remembered that just days ago I had sat beneath clouds, both those in the sky and those in my heart. The air had been more difficult to inhale and my body had felt less able. Concerns for my kids had swum in the depths of my mind and an uneasy restlessness had left my coffee tasting stale.
Ah, the difference a day makes...
How we view our own little world -- the one inhabited by the people we call friends and family, the one in which we move and sit and work and play, the one in which we most often encounter God and hear His voice, the one in which we grow and cry and laugh and hurt -- how we view that world is directly affected by how we view THE world.
In fact, the size of our own "little" world is directly affected by how we see THE world.
That's why it's critical that we develop a biblical worldview.
You thought having a biblical worldview just influenced your decisions in the election booth? Nope. Our worldview, whether it is secular or Bible-based, guides the choices we make every day, even shaping the way we feel about our own personal ups and downs, the direction of our lives, and the struggles we face. Our worldview dictates our initial reactions to the stuff of life, our goals, our habits, how we interact with others, how we spend our time and where we spend our money.
In my Bible study The View from My Front Porch I show through biblical examples how our worldviews are generally developed. Then, once again with direction from God's Word, we discover how to be more intentional about lining up our view of the world with God's view. It's a great little study, written with a woman's "voice," that helps women see the importance of developing a biblical worldview, and teaches you how to doggedly hold to one in our extremely post modern culture.
But here's what I want you to know today:
Developing a biblical worldview won't just help you watch the evening news with a keener eye or vote more in line with biblical principles. And seeing the world from God's vantage point doesn't just cause you to give more to missions or choose your movies and music more carefully.
A biblical view of the world changes you...even in your own little world.
It changes how you react to the daily stuff. It changes your dreams and hopes and goals. It changes what makes you happy and what makes you sad. It changes your prayers. It changes your thoughts, your disposition, your words and your behavior. It changes your relationships with others. It changes you.
And it makes your own little world...bigger.
That's why I'm going to take the next five blog posts, posted throughout the next two weeks, to write about five crucial viewpoints from which we see our world. Yes, it all boils down to seeing our world through God's eyes. But, for devotional purposes, I want us to consider five vantage points from which God can change our thinking, our speech, and our behavior.
- the view from our front porches
- the view from the beginning
- the view from the cross
- the view of today from heaven
- the view from the end
So as we anticipate the first of these posts, which I promise will be up tomorrow, I'd like for you to think about a few questions. And answer them in the comments section, on
Facebook or in
an email to me if you will :)
In answering these questions, let's zero in on our own little worlds. You know I don't mean anything derogatory by that expression, right? It's just my way of identifying the relationships, goals, priorities, interactions, and "life stuff" that hits closest to home. In other words, for the purpose of these devotional blog posts, we're not so much focusing on how our worldview affects our relationships with the people and events and choices outside of our daily realm of influence as much as with those people, events, and choices that live where we live. Make sense? I truly hope so :)
***To engage you in the conversation, I'm giving away one copy of The View from My Front Porch to a commentor in this series of posts. You can leave comments on each post in the comment section, through email or on Facebook.***
- What broad categories of concerns are most often on your mind? (e.g. family, your job, spiritual growth, finances, etc.)
- How hard (or easy) is it for you to quickly get to a place where you're approaching those concerns with God rather than just circling them with your own thoughts?
- What parts of your life do you, in all honesty, "reserve" from God, trying to manage them on your own? (e.g. sex life, finances, issues at work, entertainment choices)
*** In the next post in the Your World, God's View series, we'll look at the "view from our front porches." I hope you'll encourage a friend to join us!***
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Labels: The View from My Front Porch, Worldview, Your World God's View
