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Working Out My Worldview

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Ten years ago, I was staring down the last few months of my college career. I would soon walk across the stage in Odle Gymnasium and collect my degree in English Education. I was willing to get a job in the teaching world, but I wasn't certain that's where I would actually end up. Despite what I had envisioned as a freshman, there were absolutely no marriage prospects in my life as commencement loomed closer. And while I had a great relationship with my parents, and I knew I could move back in with them, I didn't really want to. I had a sense that this was the time to launch out on my own — to start being an adult. And besides all the practical considerations, that also meant owning my faith as an adult.

In my university years, I had learned a bit about worldviews — that we all have one, whether we know it or not. That a worldview is a set of assumptions — examined or unexamined — that we hold about the world and how it works. I also learned how to test a worldview to find out if it's worth its salt. A worldview that "works" has to adequately account for the data we receive from the world around us. In other words, it can't just deny reality. A viable worldview also has to be internally consistent. You can't hold beliefs that contradict one another. And finally, a solid worldview has to be livable. It can't be existentially repugnant. (I loved those geeky sounding words. In fact, they're a big reason why I remember all this stuff ten years later. Just too good to forget.)¹

During college, I laid some solid worldview groundwork. But after graduation was the time to test it and see if it could stand up to the rigors of "the real world." It's been a (sometimes intense) process of examining, reevaluating and testing, but over the past ten years, I've had the opportunity to use each of the three tests I just described, and I've discovered that a biblical worldview truly is the only framework that makes sense of the world.

The Big Question of Calling

To be complete, any worldview has to deal with the question of the purpose of life. Christians often speak of this tenet of our belief system in terms of "calling," and it's one area in which the "livability" test has mightily shaped my worldview.

For some reason, college students today (and probably ten years ago as well) graduate with the belief that within six months of receiving their diploma, they must be securely installed in a job that allows them to completely fulfill their calling. And so much the better if it pays at least $50K and doesn't involve a cubicle. The real world quickly taught me that this assumption isn't very livable. So I went digging to discover a belief that better fit reality.

I was a little surprised to discover what Scripture says about calling. It seems that God gives all believers a common calling to love Him with everything we are and to love our neighbors as we love ourselves.² Plus, He gifts each of us uniquely so that we can fill a special role in the Body (1 Corinthians 12). But in terms of figuring out exactly what career field to pursue and what state you should move to for your first job, there's not a lot of help.³

Furthermore, there is nothing in Scripture that says you have to get paid to fulfill your calling. In fact, there are specific examples to the contrary. Paul made tents to earn money to cover his needs, so that he would have the freedom to preach the gospel without being dependent on the financial support of others.⁴ So it looks like we have a lot of leeway in discovering our calling — that it's not really the get-it-right-the-first-time-or-else ordeal we make it out to be.

I've now come to believe that as long as I'm loving God, loving people, and using my God-given talents for His glory, I am probably fulfilling my calling. Even if there's a good deal of trial and error involved, and even if I'm not always receiving a paycheck in return for my efforts.

Oops … Contradictory Beliefs About Marriage

As it turns out, it's probably good that there wasn't a prospective husband in my life when I graduated from college, because I held some assumptions about marriage that needed serious examination — beliefs that independently sounded great, but ultimately contradicted one another.

For one, I believed that marriage is a lifelong commitment, and that no matter what comes along after you're married, there's pretty much no reason to back out on that promise.⁵ So far, so good. On the other hand, I held the belief that I should "wait for God's best" and that I "shouldn't settle" in my quest for the right husband. I hadn't done a very good job of examining the origins or implications of that belief, and it caused me some problems when I was trying to decide whether to marry my husband.

On one hand, I knew he was a good, godly man who loved me, was super-loyal and was quickly becoming my best friend. On the other hand, since I wasn't omniscient, there was no way I could know whether he was the very best person who would ever come along. And without this knowledge, how could I be sure that I wasn't "settling"? Clearly, I couldn't make a lifelong commitment with that question unresolved.

It was recognizing the conflict in these that eventually broke up my logjam of belief. Given that Scripture repeatedly underscores the goodness of marriage as a permanent union, I couldn't really argue with that one. To my surprise, it was my belief about not settling that was untenable. Though it was based on a desire to make a wise decision, I would have had to know the future in order to know that my husband was absolutely the best person that could possibly come along. Since I couldn't make an all-knowing decision, I decided to go with a wise decision and Scripture's blessing on the institution of marriage. I've never regretted it.

The Problem of Pain

Another belief commonly held by Christians is that "God won't give us more than we can handle."⁶ This belief gave me an opportunity to practice the worldview test of making sure our beliefs correspond with reality. I don't think this one does. The past ten years of experience has led me to believe that God does sometimes give us circumstances that are more than we can handle — at least in our own strength. That's because He wants us to trust in His strength instead (2 Corinthians 12:9). Over the years I have faced a few situations that — had I been warned about them beforehand — would have seemed unbearable. And in the moment, they felt crushing. But amazingly, God always provided exactly what I needed to get through — and even to grow through the circumstance. If we don't have a worldview that's viable in those circumstances, what's our faith worth in the first place?

A Biblical Worldview Starts With … The Bible.

I want to come out and state an assumption that I've been making all along in this article: It is vital to ground all of our assumptions about life in biblical thought. In fact, each time I applied one of the worldview tests I mentioned, I used the test to root out any unbiblical beliefs I held.

We can argue over whether Scripture is the best foundation for a worldview, but that would be another discussion entirely. Since it's a biblical worldview that I set out to build and refine, you know where I stand on that question. But here's one more thing I learned along the way: If the Bible is truly pertinent to all areas of our lives, we have to find out what it actually says.

I had spent a lot of time discovering what other people say the Bible says. But that doesn't quite get it. I'm now on my fourth full reading of the biblical text and I am finally getting the big picture. I'm also starting to remember words, details and contexts. And I'm starting to think differently. When I'm faced with a question I can't answer, I'm starting to turn to Scripture — not human understanding — first.

Some of you may be struggling with whether the Christian worldview is viable. Here's my encouragement: In order to give it a fair test, first dive into Scripture and learn what's there. Then you'll be in a better position to say whether it's adequate for ordering your life.

Author's Note: I'm sad to say that this is the last article I get to write for TrueU. It has been so valuable for me to be able to think through and write about issues of life and belief for the past three years. Thanks for journeying with me!