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Much of what I'm going to talk about today came about as a result of sitting in on an amazing presentation by Ken Baugh. If you want to learn more about this man and the wisdom he is imparting, go to his website at idtministires.com and check out the link to the Abundant Living In Christ series.
Ken recently finished his doctoral thesis. He did what was thought the impossible. He compiled a work that brings together psychology, nueo-psychology and spirituality together in a way where meaningful change can really happen. For the lay person like myself, this is very heady stuff. All I know is that what I have been able to learn from Ken is so much in line with the entire discussion of victor living.
Today I want to touch on a few points Ken presented recently on memory and how our brain functions to help make behavior happen. Ken made a point of how amazing our brains are. God wasn't kidding when He said we are "fearfully and wonderfully made". You don't have to go any further than the human brain for evidence of this Biblical truth.
Ken said that our brains have a tremendous ability to store information. He found that there is enough memory capacity in a single human brain to store all the raw data that is currently on the Internet. Ken said that our brains have the capacity to store all the information about everything that we have experienced in all our lives. That means, every detail, every smell, every sight, every single thing that our senses registered about an event is stored in our brains.
He pointed this out because of the fact that our brains play such a key role in how we behave in our lives. Our thinking is the driving force when it comes to how we handle situations that come our way. Ken has been telling us that our thinking is shaped by the memories that are stored in the deep recesses of our mind.
That's why a certain smell can trigger feelings about a situation. If that odor that triggers a particular thought was registered during a stressful situation, your reaction to smelling that odor now might not be all that positive. If that odor is a reminder of a particularly pleasant time in your life, your reaction could be completely different. Memories influence our thinking which, in turn, influences our behavior.
Why is all this important? It is because our thinking is all we really have control of in this life. We can't control what happens to us. We can't control how others will treat us. All we have is the ability to choose how we will react to what happens to us. The difference between those who live like the victors God wants us all to be and those of us stuck in victim thinking is that victors pay more attention to how they think.
Ken said that, as amazing as our brains are, they are pretty lazy when it comes to processing memories. Our brain likes to be able to systematize thoughts and memories in a way that create responses that are easily duplicated. In other words, our brains don't like to rehash feelings and memories to create new behavior because that takes up valuable resources. Our brains like to keep those power packed resources available for situations that might lead to life or death. That's not a bad plan, but most of what we face today has so little to do with life or death. I want my brain more focused on making freedom what I experience. That freedom just doesn't happen when all I do is live out of a place of automatic response.
Back to our familiar odor response example from above. When we first connected that odor to some situation in our lives, our brain remembered how we reacted. When that odor comes around again, the brain likes to go into auto-pilot mode and react like it always has. That takes the least resources which makes our brain happy.
All that is OK unless how we react causes others damage in some way. It is when behaviors are conditioned by responses to memories that haven't been processed against the truth that victim thinking can really come to the forefront. It is when we give into the automatic responses of our brain based on past victimizing input that negative habits are reinforced.
How can we know if we are going down this path. Ken highlighted one such sign. As he put it, when we react to a firecracker situation with a nuclear response we might need to stop and take an inventory of what is going on. Have you ever been in that situation where your reaction to that situation was way beyond what was actually going on. Those are what I like to call the "straw that broke the camel's back" moments to me.
We all know that any given single situation, like a single piece of straw isn't enough to make us go over the edge like we have in the past. It is when the stresses of this life combined with the brain's ability to get us to react to situations like we have in the past, that make nuclear responses to firecracker situations happen.
I love today's Bible reading. It deals with the subject at hand so well. It says...
It happens so regularly that it’s predictable. The moment I decide to do good, sin is there to trip me up. I truly delight in God’s commands, but it’s pretty obvious that not all of me joins in that delight. Parts of me covertly rebel, and just when I least expect it, they take charge. Romans 7:21-23 (MSG)
How does one do that? I believe the Bible has it right on that one too. God's word says to take captive every thought and make it obedient to Christ. My brain hurts just thinking of the amount of work this takes to make happen.
The kind of work required to take captive every thought is like beginning a workout routine. At first it requires a lot of effort to get things moving in the right direction. After a little perseverance, what was once a chore becomes more of a habit. Same can be said for taking captive the thoughts our brain wants us to automatically react to.
The key to victor living might be as simple as not reacting automatically to input that triggers behavior shaped by past occurrences. This is particularly the case when how we react is based on lies that our brains have accepted as a result of the badness that has happened a long time ago. Those buried, and long forgotten memories, might be just the key to why we go nuclear over situations that others barely react to.
The lies that our brains have accepted, as a result of the badness that has happened a long time ago, almost always have to do with who we are. If you let those situations come to mind you will inevitably feel the sting of the situation that goes to the heart to who you are. You might think that you don't measure up. You might believe that you will never be lovable enough. You might consider how meaningless your life seems to be. All these thoughts and so many more are lies when compared to who God says you are.
Because you are His Child, you are lovable. You are worthy. You have meaning. You are a victor. It is when we force our brains to process what is happening right now through how God sees us that we have the best chance at taking captive the thoughts that have enabled us to react in a victim making way in the past. As we get better at taking captive the thoughts of the past using the truth of the present, we are better able to exhibit a behavior that others see as victor living.
Thank God He is bigger than our brains. I'm so glad that He gave us such a wonderful tool as the human brain when it comes to victor living. Problem is, that if I choose to not let the fullness of my mental capacity to run free in my life, my thoughts are destined to control me rather than the other way around.
Take captive your thoughts and life fully in the freedom God wants for you as you experience victor living in your life today.
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