We all revise our thinking
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Last week I saw the Broadway play Hamilton and it was amazing. The next day we kept grandkids and we all watched a movie called The Bigfoot Family.
How in the world did those two very different things inspire this blog post?
After watching Hamilton and The Bigfoot Family, I realized I was influenced by both productions to view history and the present in ways that weren’t based on complete truth.
We are hearing a lot about the ways our history and cultural perceptions are being revised by our media and entertainment. People are expressing concerns about what their children are learning in school. While those concerns have merit, they also deserve some practical thinking as well.
I wrote last week about the normalization of homosexuality and the movement to force people to accept something the Bible describes as anything but normal and acceptable. I’m alarmed at the trends, but not surprised.
I saw a lot of things as a child that I’m glad are no longer considered normal or acceptable. I’m glad that my thinking has been revised over the years.
Hamilton and The Bigfoot Family
The play was amazing even though I think I only understood about one-third of the rap lyrics. The costumes, music, dancing, and voices were pure talent. That said, I don’t think I yet know the real story of Alexander Hamilton because I saw that play. I came home, ordered a biography, and plan to read that soon.
The Bigfoot Family is a cartoon movie that describes one family’s fight to protect the land from the abuses of the oil industry and their drilling machines. The movie was entertaining, suspenseful, exciting, and completely misrepresents the vast majority of this nation’s oil field owners, workers, and the benefits of oil itself.
I left Hamilton wondering what kind of man he really was. I watched my grandkids accept the message of the Bigfoot family movie, which presented oil drilling as an evil occupation and completely left out the benefits to our lives because of that industry.
How will our grandchildren wade through these current waves of thought? The same way we did when we were their age.
Gone With the Wind
As a young girl, I read the classic novel Gone With the Wind. Reading came easily to me and I probably read some books ahead of schedule. Books were my chief source of entertainment as a child, and I loved a great novel.
I went to my fifth or sixth grade class in the fall, and when the teacher told us to write down the books we had read during our summer break, Gone With the Wind was on mine. My teacher called me up to her desk and seriously doubted my list. She asked me several questions and was surprised when I answered them. I don’t think she approved.
If the only thing I ever learned about the Civil War came from Gone With the Wind, I would not know much truth about that period in our history. I would not think accurately about the intelligence and abilities of fourteen percent of our American population. I would probably think differently about women, people in the north, and people in the south. I’m glad my thinking has been revised these past fifty-five years.
We all revise our thinking
Romans 12:1 tells us to present ourselves to God as a living sacrifice because we want to make every effort to please him. Then, Romans 12:2 tells us how to do that. The apostle Paul was inspired to write, “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.”
No one in Scripture experienced a greater transformation in their way of thinking than Paul! He had been utterly conformed to obey all the rabbinic teaching, even the laws the Jewish leaders wrongly presented as God’s truth rather than their own. He was driven to persecute the very people that had followed God’s Messiah—God’s New Covenant will for the world.
Thankfully through the power of God’s Holy Spirit and a personal encounter with Christ, Paul’s thoughts were transformed and his mind renewed to God’s word and will. Paul lived the rest of his life for what was “good and acceptable and perfect” to God.
God will continue to do what God has always done. People’s thoughts will be revised when they encounter the power of God today just as Paul’s thoughts were changed more than two thousand years ago.
Everyone reading this blog post who has yielded their minds to God, has revised their thinking at some point in time. Hopefully we have learned to aim at what is “good, acceptable and perfect” in God’s eyes.
Let’s be aware and optimistic
Revisionist thinking isn’t a new way of thinking. Times change and so do our thoughts, our prejudices, our opinions, and our values. We are people living amid a fallen world, satanic influence, and changing generations. That’s why God gave us his unchanging word. That’s why God gave us guaranteed grace through Jesus. That’s why God gave us his powerful guide, his Holy Spirit.
Maybe you feel shocked at times by the thoughts and ideas that are spoken, shouted, printed, and even preached. I know I feel that way sometimes. But let’s not be afraid to think new thoughts, as long as those thoughts agree with God’s word. Let’s not be afraid to be open-minded as long as we have opened our minds to God’s direction. Let’s be aware of the changes around us but always optimistic because we serve an unchanging God.
The last book of the Bible, the book of Revelation, has a simple theme: In the end, those who stand with God, win big!
God would tell us exactly what he told the prophet Jeremiah: “For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope” (Jeremiah 29:11).
We all need to revise our thinking these days. We have a great future and a great hope as we trust in our perfect God.
