26 Jan How to Live in an Upside-Down World
Blog Series: Renew Your Mind ~ Transform Your Life
The story is told of a time, early in the U.S. space program, when NASA scientists, in an effort to test the outer limits of human physical capacities, fitted the astronauts with complex goggles with multiple lenses that turned their vision upside-down.*
Suddenly, up was down and right was left. Everything was upside down and backward. It made even the simplest tasks, such as walking across the room, or eating, or getting dressed, almost impossible. What their eyes told them was not merely wrong, but absolutely opposite.
In order to function even at a minimal level, they had to stop trusting their eyes, go into an inner world to discern and execute what the right move should be, trusting their inner perception of reality rather than what they saw.
As they did, they were eventually able to function without stubbing their toe or walking into a wall.
A Christian must live according to eternal reality
What a powerful parable that is of an eternal perspective! It is as though Christians have been fitted with spiritual goggles that turn the world upside down and backward.
The world says, “there is no God, everything can be accounted for by scientific observation, truth is what I say it is, emotions are a reliable decision-making tool, and happiness is my highest goal.” That is what appears to be right side up.
Christians, however, must look at that message, reject it as absolutely upside down and backward, go into an inner world (informed by Scripture and guided by the Holy Spirit), and – trusting their inner perception of reality – make decisions based on “true” truth rather than on the “false truth” of what they see.
Unless Christians function according to this inner reality and develop a strong eternal perspective, we will be continually confused, discouraged, frustrated, and possibly even defeated. God’s refusal to bless our lives can become utterly incomprehensible and eventually indefensible.
The most common reactions are to:
- quit
- reduce expectations and go through the motions of a Christian life with the assumption that “ho-hum” is the best it gets.
That is exactly where the devil wants us.
To avoid that, we adopt an eternal perspective. As we said, we re-interpret everything we see in light of eternal truth, we trust our inner conviction of right and wrong, good and bad, true and false (informed by Scripture and guided by the Holy Spirit), and make decisions based on “true” inner truth rather than the “false” outer truth that our eyes see.
Central passages for an eternal perspective
There are two central passages in Scripture for embracing and cultivating an eternal perspective. First is 2 Corinthians 4:16-18:
Therefore, we do not lose heart, but though our outer man is decaying, yet our inner man is being renewed day by day. For momentary, light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison, while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen; for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal.
When we work this passage through, we see that if we are not to lose heart in life, we must focus on the things which are unseen and eternal. If we focus on the things which are seen and temporal, we lose heart.
The second central passage is Colossians 3:1-4:
If then you have been raised up with Christ, keep seeking the things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your mind on the things above, not on the things that are on earth. For you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is our life, is revealed, then you also will be revealed with him in glory.
This passage is a straightforward appeal to, while we are living life here on earth (temporal reality), keep our mind focused on the things above (eternal reality).
These are passages that highly motivated Christians can memorize so well that they can say them as fast as an auctioneer. Then, the truth of the passage sinks deeply into the subconscious where it begins to affect our true attitudes, values, and behavior.
So, our challenge is to feed and water our perception of the biblical unseen world, and starve and combat the deceptions of the seen world.
As we nourish the unseen and weed out the seen, we learn to live well in the world because we first live well with God.
Conclusion
In our opening story, after about 30 days, the astronauts’ brains reprogrammed themselves and flipped the input so that their sight turned right-side up again, even though they were still wearing the goggles. Their brains were transformed to seeing things as they really were. Up became up again, and down became down. (When they eventually took off the goggles, they had to go back through the same process again.)
A similar thing can happen to Christians. As we continue to go into our inner world to nurture an eternal perspective, we will become more and more quick to see “true” truth. Unfortunately, there isn’t a switch that flips like the astronauts. It is always a bit of a struggle. But we get better and better. It’s called “spiritual growth.”
So, don’t trust the “false” truth of the world that you see around you. It will lead you astray (1 John 2:15-17). Instead, trust the “true” truth of the Word. It will set you free (John 8:32)
*This story is all over the internet. I could not verify an original source, but I did verify that similar experiments were done with other non-astronauts with the same results.
In case you’re new here
This blog post is part of a series titled “Renew Your Mind, Transform Your Life”, introduced on January 5, 2021. As the series continues, each succeeding post will be added to and available in the blog archives at www.maxanders.com.
If you know anyone who you think might enjoy joining us in this study, please forward this blog to them and encourage them to go to my web site (www.maxanders.com) and sign up for the free video, “Master the Bible So Well That the Bible Masters You”,available on the home page. This will put them on my regular mailing list and they’ll receive my weekly blogs on this subject.
In addition, I am creating a new online membership site, The Change Zone, that will provide information, strategies and resources to help motivated Christians renew their mind and transform their lives. If you would like to learn more about this and get updates to know when the Change Zone will be available, click here.
I look forward to going through this life-changing journey with you.
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