I read a book on creative solutions, which included some interesting things about paradigm shifts. These shifts are major and at times revolutionary changes in the way we think. They determine our attitudes and actions.
While reading the book a joke came to mind about a man sharing with a workmate his concern for his wife’s hearing. “She doesn’t seem to hear what I’m saying! I have to repeat myself at least three times.”
His workmate drops him off at his house and he walks in the front door and shouts, “Honey, I’m home!” No answer. He walks toward the kitchen. “Honey, I’m home!” Still no response. On entering the kitchen, he sees his wife standing at the sink with her back to him. He says again, “Honey, I’m home!”
“Alright, alright,” she says, “I replied the first time! Are you deaf or something?” Getting the joke requires a shift in thinking from the supposedly hard of hearing wife to the really hard of hearing husband.
Paradigm shifts came to mind again when a Christian writer claimed that humans did not descend from Neanderthals, but instead that the apelike mutants descended from Adam. I’m not saying that I agree but imagine the paradigm shift required for an evolutionist to grasp this reverse-thinking, devolutionist concept!
We need a paradigm shift in our thinking from what unbelievers are saying in the world to what the Spirit of God is saying to the churches. Example: “My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, says the LORD.” (Isaiah 55:8)
This was spoken to “the wicked” and “the unrighteous”, and so was not applicable to those who then believed; and they certainly do not to those who’ve been made “the righteousness of God in Christ.”
If we wish to see ourselves as God sees us, we need to view ourselves from His position, i.e. not look up from earth to Heaven, but rather down to earth from where we are “seated” in Heaven. Instead of wishing we could be more spiritual and more victorious but knowing that we are “more than conquerors through Christ who loved us”. Not stretching our necks upward to see what we hope to become in the future, but rather lifting our hearts to understand who we now are in Jesus.
More paradigm shifts from the old ‘fallen in Adam’ kind to the new ‘seated in Christ kind!