After we created a belief regarding what we encountered, we then tried to understand how that event fit into our worldview.  What did we learn from that situation that can help explain how the world works and our place within that world?  This is of paramount importance to us, because above all else, we need to feel safe and secure in our surroundings, and that can only happen if we understand the cause and effect of our interaction with the world.

So everything that happens to us has to have SOME type of meaning assigned to it.  What is the moral that I learned from this story?

• Does it mean that the world is cruel or nice?
• Does it mean that the people in it are good or bad?
• Does it mean that I am good or bad?
• Does it mean that I can rest and relax in life, or do I need to be on my guard all the time?
• Does it mean that people normally want to help me or hurt me?
• Does it mean that God is cruel or nice, good or bad, trustworthy or not to be trusted?

When I was in college, I was in a dinner theater group.  I was one of the youngest participants, with only one high school theater performance under my belt.  During rehearsals, the director would write notes for actors with suggestions to improve their performance, and gave them out after practice. He gave them out to everyone – except me.

Now this worried me immensely.  Several practices passed and I started wondering what the meaning of this was.  Why would he not give me a slip of paper with pointers? I determined that, since I wasn’t a real drama major, and had little experience, that he just didn’t think it was worth his time to try and improve my performance, that this was just the best I could do and he would have to live with it.

But one day I finally pushed myself to ask him why he never gave me notes like he did to the other actors.  His answer blew me away.  “Because you’re doing fine just as you are. I don’t need you to change anything.”  Now that answer wasn’t even on my radar – it never crossed my mind that he would say that.

I assigned meaning to his refusal to give me a note that was neither accurate nor based on reality.  I didn’t know the director well, so I didn’t know his personality, his past experience, or anything about him. Yet I attempted to derive meaning from his actions without a clue as to what was really going on inside of his mind. 

The meaning I assigned to the event was based on my beliefs about who and how I thought I was because of what had happened to me in the past. And chances are that you have also assigned meaning to actions by other people that were neither accurate nor based on reality.  You have probably also assigned meaning to things that simply happened by coincidence or by accident, but you never looked back to review your assessment of the situation.  It just became a part of your narrative which you carried with you for the rest of your life.

You need to be open to the possibility that some of the morals of the stories you think you learned were not accurate.  You read something into them that was not there, but still made the assessment a permanent part of how you now view the world and yourself.  It also probably affected how you see God as well.   It’s time to consider re-writing some of those morals…

RESET ASSIGNMENT:

1. What is the most important life lesson you believe you have learned?
2. Describe the event where you learned this lesson.
3. Are you absolutely sure that the meaning you derived from that event was accurate and realistic?