Thinking Right Side Up

In recent years, I've noticed that I've started to think differently about many things. In my more pious moments, I chalk it up to the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit. Sometimes I think it's my getting older, becoming more mature. I do hope, though, as I think differently about many things, that I'm coming closer to the goal of "taking every thought captive to make it obedient to Christ," as the apostle Paul tells us in 2 Corinthians 5. I fell in love with this verse and this concept when I was a college student; it gripped me back then, and it has never let go, even though I fail this lofty goal daily.

It strikes me how often the Bible surprises us as God's providential hand puts an unexpected twist on events. In the Old Testament, God wanted His people to trust Him. Most nations put their hope in chariots, but they were told to trust in the name of the Lord their God. In fact, they were often defeated when they turned to some other source for aid. So many times, the ending of the story was very different from what we would expect: Pharaoh and his mighty army with chariots and horses drowning in the Red Sea while the more humble Israel walked through on dry ground; the young boy David killing the giant warrior Goliath with a slingshot and a few stones; the angel of the Lord annihilating the mighty army of the Assyrian King Sennacherib as they threatened to destroy Jerusalem with its King Hezekiah. God delights in showing His strength in weakness, it seems.

And in the New Testament, again, we read the statements of Christ and the apostles that remind us, time and again, that things just aren't as we'd think. This past year the women's Bible study I attend studied the Beatitudes in Matthew 5, a whole list of things that will make us blessed, or happy, like being poor in spirit, mourning our sinfulness, being meek, being filled when we hunger and thirst after righteousness, being merciful and pure in heart, being peacemakers, suffering persecution. Not the things most people would name if you asked them what would make them happy.

Paul is great at throwing out these kinds of paradoxes: the message of the cross is foolish to those who are perishing, but the power of God for those who are being saved; dying is gain; that while he wants to do good, he keeps on doing evil; that it is the people who did not seek God (the Gentiles) who found Him because He revealed Himself to those who did not ask for Him.

Most of us who are Christians recognize that we are aliens and strangers in this world, peculiar people, as one older translation of the Bible puts it. We easily identify the obvious worldly patterns that eventually bring destruction to those who don't know God. We understand that material wealth and possessions won't ultimately fulfill; that faithfulness in marriage is not only our obligation but the true path to a peaceful and productive married life; that practices of the night like drunkenness and riotous living are not acceptable behaviors for children of the light.

As I was considering how very different my thought patterns as a Christian are from non-Christians, I realized that to think truly Christianly about our lives is to be the opposite of nearly everything the world advises us. In fact, I thought, we think upside down from conventional wisdom. And then I also realized that the One who created this world is the One who has told us how we ought to think, has provided the standard for truth. So when we take every thought captive to be obedient to Christ, in fact, we're thinking right side up, like the One who made us.

The challenge, though, is to continue to consider those places in our lives where we are still thinking upside down, those less obvious areas where our minds aren't quite captive yet. How is it that we countercultural Christians are supposed to look? How peculiar are we supposed to be? Look for future posts that consider these questions.