Thursday, April 23, 2009

Perceptions

How do you like the new look of my blog? I have been struggling with the perception I had of the appearance of my layout; colors, size you know the details! It was too cut and paste and didn't really appeal to me. I kept hunting for how to make it more my own (for free of course!) Found a cute site (the link is in the upper left) that offers lots of fun backgrounds (thanks Penny!) and other goodies to customize your blog site. If you're blogging, check it out! Enough of the fluff!

Yesterday's post I talked about the idea of paradigms powering our perceptions. Our model or pattern affects how we look at something or someone. The big idea here is does your paradigm fully work for you? How do you perceive circumstances that you find yourself in right now? We have so many paradigms as I mentioned but the one I would really like to explore is faith. This paradigm is at work in your life even if you don't stop and take a look at it. Your model or pattern that was handed to you from your family affects your perceptions today. Big concepts like trust aren't always openly discussed in a family but what your parents showed you about faith and trust as a child has imprinted your paradigm and thus your perceptions about faith.

What you say you believe and what you demonstrate with your actions may not always line up and that is due to your paradigm. Do you find yourself fearful and you don't know why? Are you prone to worry and want to be done with that struggle? Look at the model you grew up with. The power of modeling for the learning process of children is well known: often something important is "caught" not "taught". The tendency toward fear may have been subtly modeled and you didn't even realize it. All is not lost! Paradigms and perceptions can be changed.

I will go so far as to say that your faith paradigm is the most important pattern for you to examine and align and realign throughout life. What we do and say is important; people close to us as well as those strangers we come across are watching how we interact. If you claim the name of Jesus, how you follow Him along the Way is THE most important paradigm to keep looking at. More on this later...

1 comment:

  1. I thought my faith was solid, until my dad was admitted to the hospital a few days ago. Now everything is shifting- where's that solid rock ? Where's that sure foundation? Suddenly, I'm filled with anxiety and worry. Like there's anything I can do about what's going on with him! And prayer has taken on a whole new meaning. I know I should ask for His will to be done, but I want His will to be that Dad is healed! Ugh. Not lessons I want to be learning right now.

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