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She came to me asking many questions, one of which was how her life became so tangled. Not knowing her, I listened to her story. As I listened, I began interpreting her life through a biblical grid while mapping out her main life themes on my computer screen. The mind map below sums up our conversation, showing the trajectory of her life. The map reads from left to right. It is the same for all of us, conceptually speaking.
There are two possible paths we can take: a self-reliant path or a God-reliant path. Mable chose the low road of self-reliance, which led down a degenerative path toward self-destruction. During our counseling, I began mapping out for her the high road—a regenerative path toward Christlikeness.
A popular self-improvement teaching has been keeping the end in mind. This teaching has some merit if the end a person is keeping in mind is Christlikeness—the goal for all Christians (Philippians 3:12). There is another teaching that is not as popular but is just as important if you want your life to turn out well. It’s called keeping the beginning in mind. This belief teaches that how you begin a process will determine how you end it. What you are today is not disconnected from what you were yesterday and what you are today will influence what you will become tomorrow.
Do you see the continuity and sequencing of our life’s choices? Your days are not random or arbitrary moments disconnected from your past, present, or future. How you thought and what you did in the past has a direct bearing on who you are today. This most definitely was the case with Mable. What she is today is directly connected to the person she has been for many years. Her starting point—what she functionally believes about God and herself—has led her down an expected path. Sadly for her, the path has been self-destructive.
A presupposition is a thought, truth, or known quantity that a person believes. This belief becomes the person’s controlling system of thought, influencing and determining all of the succeeding things she says or does. You could say a person’s presupposition is her theology—how she thinks about God. Her theology can be biblical, unbiblical, or a mixture of both. Whatever her presupposition is, it’s most definitely the beginning of her journey, and it will set the trajectory for her life.
For Christians, there are two conflicting presuppositions or theologies—who we were in Adam and who we are in Christ. Because we are not entirely sanctified, there will always be competing presuppositions (theologies) until Jesus returns. Initially, we were born with one presupposition—a self-reliant worldview. After we were born a second time (John 3:7), we were given another presupposition—a new starting point. This starting point is our God-reliant worldview.
Because of these two competing worldviews, it’s imperative we are aware of them and that we know how to repent from a self-reliant presupposition to a God-reliant presupposition daily. Some Christians do not clearly understand these competing worldviews. In such cases, they typically become stuck in a self-reliant presupposition, which becomes their predominant way of thinking, which is what happened to Mable.
Mable’s journey and life circumstances have shaped her into a self-reliant person. It’s really not important how she became this way. The essential thing to know is she is self-sufficient and has been unwilling and afraid to trust God fully. It’s also not that important to understand why she has not fully trusted God with her life. Maybe she was scared to do so. Perhaps she has been angry at God. Maybe she has been ignorant of how to trust God. Perhaps it’s been a combination of all three of these things—fear, anger, ignorance. Sometimes, people make too much of their past.
If you are caring for someone who has a hard time trusting God and whose self-reliant choices have led them down a path of destruction, you must spend time understanding their past. You cannot change what has happened, but once you begin understanding their past, you can move them forward. You can’t change the past, but you can change the future, and that is where you want to spend most of your time. This concept is where the doctrine of repentance becomes essential. You’ll see this in the center section of the mind map.
Repentance is the transitional piece that allows a person to go from a self-reliant worldview to a God-reliant worldview. I have a one-hour webinar that teaches how to repent. Be sure you have a masterful understanding of this teaching. It is essential. You cannot change if you do not know how to change. I also have another Mind Map on Christian Maturity, which practically fleshes out how to change. This webinar on repentance and mind map on how to be a mature Christian will serve you well.
There were four main reasons why Mable was shaped into a self-reliant person: She was born that way (Adam), shaped that way (family), and influenced that way (culture). All of us are born in Adam. Part of what it means to have an Adamic nature is we trust ourselves more than God. Every human begins life the same way. This condition is why we have a gospel—to bring us from death to life. Mable was also shaped to be self-reliant by her parents. The family dynamic is the initial and most influential shaping dynamic during a child’s formative years.
Being born a rebel (Adamic), poor biblical training (family dynamic), and the influence of her culture—the third reason she has been self-reliant—all worked in concert to create Mable’s worldview of doing things her way. Of course, she has made shaping decisions, too. She was reared in a Christian culture, but Christianity was not the driving practical influence of her life. The cares of this world choked the Bible’s light and the Spirit’s power. Because of her weak faith in God, her desires and thoughts were not God-centered. Kind seeks after kind, which is what happened to Mable. She began to build a team of companions who were similar to her. Her team of companions did not influence her toward a strong faith.
Though there were solid Christians scattered throughout her life, they did not carry the practical weight to overcome her Adamic tendencies, her negative family influences, and the culture’s pressure to conform to its worldview. Her team of influencers was not just people. It was varied and designed to inebriate her mind into self-reliant thinking. The books she read, the movies she saw, the sports she participated in, and the music she listened to all worked together to captivate her thinking. It’s important to note here that Mable is not a victim. She will not be able to say, “I’m this way because of my family and my culture.” She is the way she is because she has made life choices based on her presupposition. She is an adult who loves to be in control—doing things her way.
We are a product of our companions—those things and people we surround ourselves with, which serve to influence us. Someone once said, “Tell me what a person reads and who his friends are and I will tell you what kind of person he is.” That is an accurate statement. In counseling, one of the things you want to do is find out what companions have had the most influence on a person’s life. Once you list the person’s companions, you’ll then have an accurate assessment of who the person is.
Mable’s companions were, for the most part, not God-centered, God-loving, God-focused, or God-desiring influences. To varying degrees, her influencers trained her to look out for number one. She had fully bought into the self-esteem gospel: esteeming herself, her life, her desires, her dreams, and her plans most of all. This kind of high self-estimation can only lead to destruction. Mable was a self-centered lady who expected the world to revolve around her. For the most part, life was all about her.
The bad news was that her world was not cooperating. She should have anticipated the world she loved to live in would not embrace her high view of herself or be so willing to meet all of her desires. This tension was Mable’s main problem. She was a self-centered woman who expected life to go according to her dreams. Besides, she had invested a lot of time in controlling her world so all things would turn out the way she wanted, and when they didn’t, she was devastated.
Mable needed to shift her worldview. She needed to move from a self-reliant theology to a God-reliant theology. The first day we met, I gave her a one-year assignment to read Wayne Grudem’s Bible Doctrine systematic theology book and answer every question in it. The purpose of this long-term assignment was for her to learn about God. She had God-deficient thinking, and her worldview had been shaped by her desire to be in control. She needed to plunge into God’s deep end and not come up until he was totally saturated mentally. If your starting point determines your ending point, which it does, then she needed a more sure starting point. I was trusting God to change her presupposition, which meant she needed to have faith in something besides herself.
So faith comes from hearing and hearing through the word of Christ (Romans 10:17).
She needed a new theology. Her foundation was weak, and because of this, she had gone down a bad path. I wanted to put her on the high road to Christlikeness. A big piece of this process is repentance. To repent is to change, and she needed to change her worldview, which meant we needed to get inside some of her thought patterns—the desires and thoughts that fed her mind. I’ve listed some of the things we addressed, which you can see in the repentance section of the mindmap, e.g., fear, lust, anger, jealousy, and vengeance.
Because self-reliant living is irrational and impossible, there have to be relational breakdowns in a person’s life. Mable’s life had many relational breakdowns, which led to the aforementioned sins of the mind. As she began to repent of these inordinate affections, her mind began to be free to enjoy God.
Simultaneously with the mind work she was doing, she was also changing her companions—the main influencers in her life. Because our companions influence our minds, changing our companions is part of how you reorient your mind. Her new companions—the Spirit, Bible, Church, Christ-centered music, prayer, and friends—became big players in her process of change. They all worked together to create a new knowledge base that led to new patterns of living (called application in the mind map).
In time, she became wiser in her thinking. Her new worldview began to change her identity. She did not have to be number one anymore. She did not have to be served (Mark 10:45). Her growing affection for Christ began to radiate from her countenance. She was evolving into Christlikeness. For the first time in her life, she was becoming less needy and demanding and more giving and considerate. One of the best templates in Scripture that communicates this is found in Galatians 5:22-23—the fruit of the Spirit. This kind of fruit is born out of a heart that is God-reliant.
My friend, Mable, was changing the end of her life because she was willing to do what it took to change her starting point. This does not mean she will get everything she wants, but it does mean she will be satisfied with what God gives her. Being God-reliant does not mean you will be successful, according to the culture’s understanding of success. It does mean you will be successful with God (Joshua 1:8). Success with God begins with peace. The God-reliant person is at peace with God, self, and others. Mable is heading in this direction. She is in the process of changing her presupposition, which will happen in proportion to her repentance. Perchance you think of her, please pray for her. God knows her real name.
Rick launched the Life Over Coffee global training network in 2008 to bring hope and help for you and others by creating resources that spark conversations for transformation. His primary responsibilities are resource creation and leadership development, which he does through speaking, writing, podcasting, and educating.
In 1990 he earned a BA in Theology and, in 1991, a BS in Education. In 1993, he received his ordination into Christian ministry, and in 2000 he graduated with an MA in Counseling from The Master’s University. In 2006 he was recognized as a Fellow of the Association of Certified Biblical Counselors (ACBC).
