Commit your work to the Lord, and your plans will be established (Prov 16:3).

Christians are called to be set apart, holy, and dedicated to God.  But so often, the People of God walk in ways that make them indistinguishable from the people of the world.

Sometimes we are comfortable in our sin and just don’t want to leave it…we think we can determine our own way and decide what is right and wrong for ourselves.

But at other times, we earnestly desire to honor God and submit to His way, yet we are unaware that worldly values have contaminated our worldview.  Both sides of this problem are disheartening.

A worldview is the set of values, beliefs and ideas that governs our evaluation of truth and determines out priorities.  Of course, our understanding of truth and the ordering of our priorities shapes our worldview too.

So, our worldview is a sort of a chicken or egg thing…it is hard to know which comes first.  Does our worldview shape our experiences, or do our experiences shape our worldview?  And the answer is yes.  And yes.

As we interpret our personal history and circumstances through the lens of our worldview, we unconsciously seek to confirm the values, beliefs and ideas which form that worldview.  In our life and in our learning, we look for evidence which proves our underlying ideology.  We want to validate our way of thinking.

But in the search for “truth”,  a skewed worldview can take us further away from The Truth.  If we are not careful, we approach Scripture with a set of faulty assumptions which filters the reading of the Word.  Instead, we should apply the Word to our worldview.

How can we begin to shift our worldview so that our values, beliefs and ideas confirm Biblical Truth?  God has the answer…

Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God’s will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect (Romans 12:2, NLT).

God changes the way we think; He fixes our faulty vision.  What a relief!  And this is the beginning of changing the way we live.  I am convinced that God changes our minds and our hearts by application of His Word.  As we pursue relationship with Him and the knowledge of Him, the Word and the Spirit work in concert to transform us.

The LORD says,

You will seek Me and find Me when you seek Me with all your heart (Jer 29:13)

And Jesus said,

Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and [and He will give you everything you need] (Matt 6:33, ESV, NLT).

In our family, before we knew what a “worldview” was, or that ours was broken, we determined to change the direction in which we were going and, to more intentionally put God first.

After reading the book Lead Like Jesus, my husband and I developed our first Family Mission Statement, along with our stated values, and we selected Scriptures to support them.  These Scriptures became the basis for the kids’ Bible memory work, which was the foundation for our biblical parenting (currently, I am sharing these verses on Memory Verse Mondays).

Our Family Mission Statement and Values reflected our goals and beliefs, the priorities we wanted to pursue, as individuals and as a family…

Our Mission: The Lafont family seeks to glorify God in all that we do, remembering that each thought, word and action is our offering to God.

Scott and I originally wrote our Family Mission Statement in 2007, and it was a turning point for our family as we set God and His glory as our first priority.  This decision did not change our family overnight.  And we still struggle to glorify Him daily.  But putting into words our choice to make God first meant that we were committed to moving in the same direction and that we were in agreement about what was most important in life.  In the long run, it has been a game-changer.

Tomorrow I will share about the process of developing a Family Mission Statement.  Currently we are on our second one.  I am happy to share both, plus the supporting goals and Scriptures, with you in the coming posts.  Tell me, does your family have a Mission Statement?  If so, what is it?  If not, what would it be?

Hugs,

Britta ~ I am justAgirl…just like you!