To turn around by 180° means that you have turned right around to be facing in the opposite direction to where you started.
So, to do a 180 is to adopt a position or point of view that is the exact opposite of your previous point of view.
Thus, if you are in favor of X then change your opinion to be against X, then you have done a full 180.
Such a radical change of viewpoint can and does indeed happen in life even if rarely. Usually, it is because the person has come to realize what had been taken for granted is not in fact really on as solid a ground as had been assumed.
How about you? What changes of viewpoint(full 180 or less) have you had, and how did they come about?
Please share your own story, whatever it is, right here.
This now is the story of my most significant full 180.
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It is actually more life-changing than a single viewpoint change. It was a basic lifestyle change that remains to this day.
My parents were not churchgoers and did not talk at all about God or anything of a religious nature.
So, as I grew up I remained ignorant of such things. Further, I readily imbibed what was taught at school of society values and truths. These included, of course, science and its view of evolution.
That was where I was at into my early twenties. By then I had left home and locality, and had moved elsewhere. Into a house with other single guys, with an older housekeeper lady who supplied our rooms and prepared our meals.
Then two things happened to me(out of the blue", as it were), one immediately after the other, that together completely changed my life and its focus.
The first of these happenings was a movie I went out to watch. It was based on a trial that had taken place in the 1920s which was re-enacted.
Known as the Scopes trial, it pitted science against religion, majoring on creation vs evolution, as to which should be taught in the schools.
As is well-known, science was the clear winner.
So I left the movie in a good mood, having seen my own view convincingly confirmed in that first happening.
And being completely unaware and unprepared for the second happening that was about to take place.
After I got back to our house, I had coffee with the housekeeper, enthusiastically telling it all to her.
All I can remember of her response are these few words: ["You don't really believe that, do you".
Not said as a question, but confidently said as a statement of fact.
Those few words hit me like a ton of bricks. I went to my room in confusion that overnight was replaced by a firm conviction that what she had said was absolutely true.
I immediately visited Christian bookstores(my first time), and got my first Bible and other literature. I also began going to church, something I had never done before.
After that the lady invited me to her room once a week, and we had sweet fellowship there for some time, until I moved to another house and locality.
I had done a complete 180, of such magnitude that it had changed my thinking, my lifestyle, my decisions, and my goals, for the rest of my life.
Those few words had cut so deeply, and so effectively exposed me, that they could only have come from God Himself, through another human.
I am so grateful.
Hebrews 4:
12 For the word of God is alive and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.
13 Nothing in all creation is hidden from God’s sight. Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of Him to whom we must give account.
