Its a Whole New World

“The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present.” Abraham Lincoln

A new reality has emerged, a new economy, a new challenge.

We must think anew and develop a new mind-set and a new skill-set and a new tool-set that flows from it.


Adapted from The 8th Habit, by Stephen Covey.

Women Intellectuals

Rosalie de Roseset, a professor at Moody Bible Institute, wrote a very interesting article, “Minding Your Mind,” in Christianity Today, posted online at: http://blog.christianitytoday.com/giftedforleadership/2007/02/minding_your_mind.html

She challenges women to get beyond the touchy-feely and learn to discipline their mind in order to become healthy, mature Christians. Women need to spend time in serious Bible study and reading deep, profound books. This is not a very popular topic today, especially for women, but it is right on.

Here is her conclusion:

“When people—in this case, women—neglect the use of their minds, they may get caught up in idle activities, too many activities, silly reading and leisure habits which lead, finally, to a shallow understanding of what it means to live the Christian life. Their faith may also be too thin to sustain them in the hardships that invariably accompany the average existence.

Their Christian understanding, undeepened by knowledge, may become boring whether they admit it or not. As J.I. Packer says in his popular book Knowing God, “The world becomes a strange, mad, painful place, and life in it a disappointing and unpleasant business for those who do not know about God. Disregard the study of God, and you sentence yourself to stumble and blunder through life, blindfold, as it were, with no sense of direction, and understanding of what surrounds you. This way you can waste your life, and lose your soul” (pp. 14-15).”

A New Paradigm

Stephen Covey, in his book The 8th Habit, says:

“If you want to make minor, incremental changes and improvements, work on practices, behavior or attitude. But if you want to make significant, quantum improvement, work on paradigms.”

A paradigm is a perception, assumption theory, frame of reference or lens through which you view the world. It is like a map of a city. If the map is inaccurate, it will make no difference how hard you try to find your destination or how positively you think—you’ll stay lost. But if the map is accurate, then diligence and attitude matter. But not until.

Covey uses the practice of bloodletting in the Middle Ages as an example of a wrong paradigm. It was the wrong paradigm of sickness and health that led the unnecessary death of many. If the paradigm is inaccurate, then the more efficient you are, or the faster you are, the more damage you will do. You could be the best at bloodletting and still be highly ineffective in curing disease. It wasn’t until a new paradigm of sickness and health was discovered, Germ Theory, that modern medicine was able to cure many of the diseases and illnesses that confounded doctors in the Middle Ages.

When we change our paradigm, and then our practice changes. Instead of spending time trying to get people to change their behavior, we should focus on changing their mindset. It takes more effort to do this, but it is much more effective in the long run. Give them an accurate map of reality, then they will be able to find their way through life. Paul said in Romans 12:2, “Be transformed by the renewing of your mind.” It takes more than just getting people to do a few more things better; it takes changing their mindset, so that they see things as God sees them and they think and feel about things as God thinks and feels about them. In this way, the whole person is transformed.