What's Your Worldview?

As a pastor one of the most painful things to watch is when someone begins to struggle with and question their faith. This is especially difficult when it is a young person making the transition into adulthood. As a parent my GREATEST hope for my children isn’t for them to be successful, rich or even happy. My greatest hope is for them to know and love God.

One of the things that I have noticed over the years is that there has been a radical shift in perspective. My generation largely viewed ‘truth’ as something existent outside of self. It was absolute, unchanging and not subject to personal opinion. For instance the ‘truth’ of gravity really doesn’t care if you believe it or not. It just is.

Today many view ‘truth’ as something personal, internal and malleable. What is ‘true’ for one may or may not be ‘true’ for another. What is ‘true’ today may not be tomorrow. Herein lies the million dollar question…

Do we view God through the eyes of our worldview or do we view the world through God’s eyes?

If God must fit within my worldview then he/she/it is really no god at all; no bigger than my understanding or imagination and no more powerful than I am. This was the realization I had at the age of 18. I had an epiphany that if there was truly a God then He was at the center of everything and I was not. He was not subject to the whims of my emotions or limited to the finite capacity of my mind. If there really was an eternal being that held time and space in His hand then He was the author of ‘Truth’. More accurately He is TRUTH.

“As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.” - Isaiah 55:9 NIV

I recently met a young man, newly saved, who had attended church as a teen. Since God didn’t fit within his worldview he admittedly embraced a pagan lifestyle to the extent of serving as a pagan priest. In his desire to break with all things Christian he set up a meeting with a pastor to vent and share his ‘truth’. In that meeting he found love, and more importantly found LOVE. When we stop trying to force God into our worldview and make Him Lord of our lives everything else comes into focus.

I am so thankful that it is not my place to judge God, or anyone else for that matter. I am grateful that ‘Truth’ is constant, because He is constant.

“Do not be deceived, my dear friends! Every good gift and every perfect present comes from heaven; it comes down from God, the Creator of the heavenly lights, who does not change or cause darkness by turning. By his own will he brought us into being through the word of truth, so that we should have first place among all his creatures.” – James 1:16-18 GNT