Divine Viewpoint Strategy (Part 2)
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In our last lesson we discussed the importance of developing a Divine Viewpoint (DVP) Strategy to deal with the difficult circumstances we face in life. Looking at the person of Joseph as an example, we learned that he interpreted his situation of dying through the viewpoint of his biblical worldview.

In the midst of his death, Joseph didn't loose control of his thoughts. He refused to see things they way an unbelieving Egyptian would. Rather, as a follower of God, he used God's word to direct his actions and calm his heart. We called this thinking strategy the RCT (ReConnecT) Drill. We want to reconnect our thoughts with the God's Word when things get difficult. There are three components that Joseph used in order to maintain his Divine Viewpoint (DVP). These included:

• Recall - when a stressful situation arises you recall a Scriptural text, fragment, promise, or story to quite down and focus on the Lord.
• Connect - once you have the appropriate Scripture in your mind you have to connect it to your situation. This often happens as you talk to God in prayer about your choice. Thinking through the Human Viewpoint (HVP) and Divine Viewpoint (DVP) choice you have before you.
• Trust - we keep God's Word circulating in our mind, encircling our situation, until we can trust the Lord and move forward.

Developing this strategy takes focus and time. We can't apply this approach to thinking when we are in the middle of an emotional situation or under high stress. We must train our minds with this strategy before we get caught in a jam.

In working through this strategy in my own thinking, I find that each step in the ReConnecT Drill can present its own set of challenges. The first two steps require that you understand what God has said concerning your situation. This of course takes time and commitment to learn and remember.

The third step of trusting is often the most difficult. This is because we cannot make ourselves trust God's Word without first being convinced.

Faith comes from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the word of Christ. (Romans 10:17)

Being convinced of God’s Word is essential because we have to deal with so many hang-ups in our mind. We have thoughts bouncing around in our heads like, “why are you doing this to me God...I can’t see the purpose for this terrible thing...if God really loved me He wouldn’t have let this happen.” These kind of thoughts are so familiar to us because we spend the majority of our time feeding the Human Viewpoint (HVP).

Trying to combat this in our mind is very difficult because our bible training is so little that when we get in a jam and we recall a fragment of Scripture the HVP, being so much stronger, just swallows it up and destroys it. The end result is our inability to walk by faith.

The strategy to overcome this problem is to reverse the trend. We want to develop a DVP that outweighs our HVP. We want to be convinced of God’s truth when we are not in the thick of life’s stressful circumstances. We need to transform our minds and swallow up temptations with truth in order to maintain our walk of faith.

This lesson builds on a few biblical confrontations of DVP vs. HVP and then further develops the need for training in the Christian worldview in order to be ready to give an answer to the curious unbeliever.