One of the great wonders of the human mind is the ability to create the world it wants. We see the things that support our worldview and are blind to the things that do not. If we see the world as a hostile place our mind will focus on slights and will spin things into a negative. Paranoia comes on a sliding scale from one to ten. Some of us are so anxious for this age to come to an end and for the second coming of Jesus to occur we see “Signs of the Times” everywhere. They are usually negative because that fits an end time worldview. See Matthew 24.
Then there are those who do not believe the world is any worse off now than it has ever been. The wars and earthquakes and threats of violence fit into a pattern of history that has been with us for thousands of years. Increased numbers are merely the product of better reporting in an age of instant worldwide news coverage. For these people the world has always been a dangerous place, so live with it.
There is a third kind of person who, while not being a total Pollyanna, sees the blessings they have and are grateful. While they recognize bad things do happen, those bad things are far outnumbered by good things. They minimalize bad things and refuse to let them set the tone for their life. They long for the second coming but are happy to make the best of what is.
There is such a wealth of incidents, good and bad, our minds are intriguingly capable of defining, with an overwhelming amount of evidence, the history and present we desire. The most difficult educational framework to design for schools is social studies. Just whose viewpoint will be emphasized in the limited number of pages a history book can contain?
Written by Roger Bothwell on May 27, 2010
Spring of Life Ministry, PO Box 124, St. Helena, CA 94574
Rogerbothwell.org