How Did I Get Here or Why Do I Think That?
by Hugh DeLong
Maybe I am obsessed, at least a bit, with knowing why I think what I think. It is easy to picture that I came into this world as a blank Etch-N-Sketch, but a world where I controlled all the buttons. Yet, from the beginning, other people have been pushing my buttons! So much was learned even before I could speak and articulate my thinking. It is amazing to try and think of all the concepts that I learned before I was 5 years old – and I remember almost nothing of the process!
But then there was my brother, the neighborhood friends, the aunts, uncles, cousins, etc. Again, without a lot of philosophical thinking on my part, I learned and adopted many viewpoints and concepts. Yes, even prejudices (I don’t like any color of watermelon except red, etc. ).
Of course, then there was the public school. The infamous school bus, the playground where we established our pecking order, and the teachers. My mother, being a teacher in the same school I was in, inadvertently let me in on these teachers’ lives outside of school. I spent time in the teachers’ lounge and workroom and saw them as they interacted with adults, which was often far different than how they "ruled the classroom."
Etc., Etc. At each stage of life, we have people teaching us and pushing our buttons. And thus, we become the people we are. But remember that those who are pushing our buttons had people pushing theirs – and those people in turn had … You get the picture. So, why do I think the way I think?
One of the great experiences of my life was going to foreign countries. They are different! Who pushed their buttons? Why do they think like that? What’s wrong with me doing this, I have always done it this way… For me, it made me stop and think about the stuff I wrote above! This caused me to begin to look not only at my personal situation and thinking but about the society that I live in. This then reaches back to Western civilization and all of its twisted history! The truth is that we (that infamous ‘we’) have not always done it this way. We have not always thought of things in this manner. We have not always held preconceived perceptions (prejudices).
Then, I was introduced to Jesus and the Bible. It doesn’t really matter at that point where one grew up, who pushed whose buttons, now I am asked to put away those things, to be renewed in my mind, to adopt a new way of looking at the world, my neighbors, and myself. I am no longer to be conformed to my world. My standard of right and wrong has changed. My purpose in life and my expectation of death have changed. Is that not true with you also? Thus we have often read of this experience. We call it ‘conversion’, and so it is. (cp. I Corinthians 6; Ephesians 4:18ff; Romans 12:1-2; I Peter; etc., etc. Examine yourself, and recognize that many ways of thinking have come not from Jesus and His teaching but from the world and the people around us. Learn to discern the difference! Indeed, such proves difficult because not only is ‘everyone else’ doing or thinking this, but that is the way we (I) have always thought about things. Don’t just think as you have always done, but now have the mind of Christ (Philippians 2:1-4). Ask, again and again, why do I think that?
This is yet another 5 am thinking while sitting at Starbucks preparing to teach the book of Ecclesiastes! It is absolutely amazing to watch someone else go through the process of asking "What is my purpose in life (and beyond!)?"
