"Is my world the same as your world?"

Why do people do what they do?

What we do is the result of a pradigm that we hold to. What is a paradigm?
It is perceiving our world from a frame of reference that we believe is reality.It isn't necessarily,but to that or from that paradigm, it is.

We all have our paradigms that have been fashioned over time through various factors that have influenced us to perceive the world in a certain way. These factors could have been family tradition passed down or through traumatic events or just the influence of educators, friends etc. Whatever way they have come, right or wrong, we all have them. And our paradigm is how we perceive the world. Its our reality.

But that doesn't mean that it is so. We may perceive that everyone is rejecting us, and so as a defence mechanism we reject, before we get the perceived rejection. So, now, everyone withdraws from us, because we are rejecting them, and our wrongly perceived view, we now feel, has been proven.

These paradigms are so real to us, that many times, we manipulate and 'control' the enviroment out of our perception of it, and it becomes a self-fulfilling 'prophecy'over our lives. The idea that everyone is against me, for instance, is just not real. However, can everyone be wrong and I am the only one right. In the way I perceive things, Is it not maybe because my paradigm is a little out of sync? We may try hard to 'fit in', but just experience more rejection,or more insecurity, or more gathering of like-minded paradigm people.

King Saul was absolutley convinved he had obeyed the Lord, when he was confronted by Samuel the prophet about why there was a lowing of cattle and a bleating of goats. Emphatically,and categorically he stated "... But I did obey...". Even though we know the command had been not to take anything, but yet in his paradigm for some or other reason he believed he was right. Of course, the next step was well the men, who were with him, wanted to keep the animals for a sacrifice. Wow! Now in his mind, in his paradigm, it was everybody else. He perceived the world and his actions as reality, and therefore had to be right and had to be acceptable. When confronted, it was now in this 'reality', everyones else's fault, not his.

What is perceived from our paradigm as reality, is not necessarily reality at all. It's not as it seems. Godliness, is to perceive the world from God's paradigm. To be transformed into Christ's likeness, is to be changed, in foundational paradigm, to a Christ-like perception of things.
People will destroy, manipulate, control, hold grudges, walk in unforgiveness, anger, bitterness, punish those around them, and feel totally justified because they perceive. out of their paradigm, this is what needs to be, this is reality. But it is just a skewed perception of the reality.

To have a change of behaviour, we need a change of paradim. We need to change the way we perceive our world. We need to understand that the way we perceive the world and our enviroment is not necessarily, reality. It's not always as it seems, to us.