Tag Archive - thoughts

Words and thinking

May 13, 2009 • 0 Comments

Form BobHamp.com

By the time we are 3, many of our neurological pathways are already firmly in place. Ways of processing sensory input are all but locked in. So as we grow and start learning language, we must realize that words connect to these pathways and ways of processing data. It only takes one session of marriage counseling to realize that two different people can assign radically different meanings to the same word. While husband and wife may share the same definition of a word, the emotional charge attached to it can be 180 degrees different.

Words are the bits that program our minds, as they connect to real objects and experiences. The word “dog” can create physiological reactions in someone who has been bit by one. It does not necessarily matter if an actual dog is present, the word is sufficient to create experience. For another person the same word, “dog” can produce peace and calm.

So as we try to learn about the central and anchoring issues of living life, as we pursue God, and His plan for us, the words we use have incredible power. Words that are healing to one, may frighten another, while words that bring life to one, may produce guilt in another. Is it any wonder God found it necessary to make “The Word” a person.

Is it any wonder The Person spoke in stories and said things like, “you have heard it said… (religious tradition) but I say to you… (the heart issue)”. He had a lot of neurological pathways to re-route. Even the word “repent” which refers to the change of these ways of processing, has come to mean something completely different to many. Many people are put off by the word, because of what it has come to mean.

I might say, “you have heard it said that ‘repent’ means to feel bad and clean up your life, but I say to you, repentance is a way of opening your mind to a whole new way of seeing the world”.

Today open your eyes, slow down, breathe. If you were still and peaceful how would you see the world differently. Consider that some words contain life but they have seemed undesirable to you. Like green beans.

Ways to think – contact lenses and sausage machines

May 11, 2009 • 1 Comment

From BobHamp.com

Ways to think… processes… how things get into our mind and what we do with them once they get in. Most of the time we don’t even think about… well… how we think. Yet nothing could affect us more than those two processes. We so often want change in our lives, but generally consider only changing the content of our thoughts. How did those thoughts get there? How did they get to have such a powerful effect on us?

Ways to think #1: Contact Lenses: How things get in.

Contact Lenses sit right in front of our eyes. Anything that comes in must pass through the lenses, and the lenses affect what comes in. After a while we don’t even realize these lenses are present. When this happens the effect they have simply becomes our new reality. Below are two examples of Cognitive Contact Lenses.

Belief and doubt. Have you ever noticed how easy it is to doubt the truth? Why is it so difficult to doubt lies? Belief and doubt are filters that either let things into our minds or keep things out of our minds. Someone makes a statement, or describes for us how they perceive us. If we already believe the thoughts they’ve shared; they gain instant entrance; the thoughts enter in and join up with similar thoughts we have already harbored. If their opinions don’t match our own, they bounce off our mind, as if the door is locked… no entrance. Many life changing truths remain locked outside our mind because we are pre-disposed to doubt. For one day, try doubting something besides true stuff.

Exception vs. Rule: All of us have a filter I call the exception or the rule. Because we are convinced that certain experiences are normal and certain experiences may happen occasionally our mind automatically categorizes experiences. When people say they like us, we are sure that is the exception. When we screw something up, surely that is the rule. Again, we give no credit to anything we consider the “exception” When we picture ourselves as fearful, any courageous behavior is immediately discounted. What if we have our wires crossed? What if we are wrong about the exceptions and rules of our lives? We lose valuable credit when we act in accordance with our nature, if we are wrong about our true nature. Often we are.

Ways to Think #2: Sausage Machines: What happens to thoughts once they get in.

A sausage machine makes sausage. That’s what it always does. Put in beef, it makes beef sausage. Put in venison, it makes deer sausage. The processes of a sausage machine simply make the same thing out of anything that you put into it. Put in aluminum foil, it will make aluminum sausage. The machine does exactly the same thing with any input. Our mind processes data: if we want things to change we must learn to do new things with the data that comes into our minds. Here are a few examples of ways our minds process stuff.

Meditation: It sounds so spiritual to meditate. Meditate simply means to hold something constantly in your thoughts. We use the term “dwell on”, to describe meditating. Interesting phrase. Dwell means to inhabit or reside. So to meditate means to inhabit a particular thought. Bill Johnson, a teacher I admire, says if you know how to worry you know how to meditate. Decide on purpose what you will meditate on.

Passivity: We often assume that our minds run on auto pilot. We simply allow pictures, imaginations etc. to run around loose in our minds as if we cannot give orders to them. Try for one day to tell the thoughts in your mind what to do. It is a little like parenting. If we are going to be hands off, we should expect the thoughts to misbehave.

Focus: I have heard it said that if you have difficulty remembering the names of people you meet, the problem is not your memory, it is your focus. When someone introduces themselves, if you are thinking several things at the same time, their name will not stick. Not because of memory but because of focus. Focus, as a cognitive process, is harder than ever in the days we live in. Texting, email, cell phones, iPods… our current methods of communication lend us to unfocused communication, because we increasingly communicate on multiple channels simultaneously. Focus and choose wisely what you focus on. You may have to let a few things go.

Surrender: This word can mean many things. For the purpose of this conversation, I mean that you can surrender your thoughts to someone else. There are many ways we can give our thoughts away and give other people control or at least strong influence of our thoughts. Jealousy, or wishing we were someone else, gives away a few acres of our minds. Fantasy, in many forms, allows others to hold deeds to plots in our minds. Resentment, or unresolved bitterness also allows people to hold territory in our minds.

It is difficult to recognize your own lenses. Let God and others gently show you the ways you may have filtered input. You will be amazed that as you take control of the processes of your thinking, how quickly you will find yourself thinking differently.

Can the devil read our mind or hear our thoughts?

April 25, 2009 • 3 Comments

Does the devil know our thoughts? Does he know what we think about? Can he know the secrets of our heart?

I don’t believe the enemy can read our mind for a couple reasons.

First, the Bible says that God knows the secrets of our heart (Psalms 44:22), and that he searches our heart (Psalms 139:23). Nowhere in scripture does it say that the enemy searches our heart or knows the secrets of our heart. Only God can do that.

Secondly, only God is omniscient, or all-knowing. Satan is not all knowing. He does not know everything. And, neither do angels. Only God knows everything.

Does that mean the devil doesn’t know what we are thinking? We have to be careful here, because Genesis 3:1 says that the serpent was more cunning and crafty than all the other beasts of the field. He is quite the strategist. He is very subtle and devious in his ways. He has become a master at reading us through our behaviors, actions and micro expressions.

Micro expressions? One of my favorite television shows is “Lie to me”, about this specialist in neuroscience and neuropsychology who has become a master of reading people through slight expressions in the facial muscles or certain movements with their hands or shoulders, what he calls “micro expressions”.

Another show that is similar in concept is “The Mentalist”, about a guy who once used this ability to pretend to be a psychic, but now works for investigators to help solve crimes by reading people.

These are great examples of how I believe the enemy reads us. While he can’t read our thoughts, he can read our behaviors and body language. He knows when we are afraid or concerned or stressed. He often knows what we are thinking about by the way we are responding or acting. Watch somebody long enough, and you’ll be able to read them as well.

Can the devil read our mind or hear our thoughts? No, I don’t believe so. But, does he know what we are thinking at times? Yeah, I believe he is a master of reading our body language and micro expressions.

Renewing your mind and changing your thoughts

April 17, 2009 • 0 Comments

I was having lunch the other day with a friend of mine who has recently been struggling through some issues with his oldest child. The teenager had become quite rebellious, even to the point of having run-ins with the law.

I asked my friend what he’s been doing to try to get his son back on track. He said something that has been stuck in my head for days now. He said, “It’s not about just changing behavior, although that can help. And, it’s not about changing the environment, which can also help. Rather, it’s about changing the heart. Changing behavior and environment may last for a season, but a heart change is what he needs.”

The next morning in my quiet time, I started to dissect this concept a bit more. I’ve been struggling through some personal issues in my own life that have plagued me for years. These patterns of behavior have been so hard to break. So, my friend’s words hit me pretty hard. I’ve spent most of my Christian life fighting, wrestling and struggling to change certain behaviors, but with only slight improvement. I’m weary of the cyclic reemergence of these destructive patterns. It’s been terribly frustrating.

As I was thinking through this, I started to dig a bit deeper into the heart. I know that as we come to know Christ, we are given a new heart with new desires and new motivations.

    “I will give you a new heart with new and right desires, and I will put a new spirit in you. I will take out your stony heart of sin and give you a new, obedient heart” (Ezekiel 36:26).
    “What this means is that those who become Christians become new persons. They are not the same anymore, for the old life is gone. A new life has begun!” (2 Corinthians 5:17).

As I was talking to God about this, he started to clarify this more:

Son, your heart has been changed. If it hadn’t, you wouldn’t be able to hear me so clearly. So, know that your heart is right. Your heart is good.

It’s your flesh and mind that need renewing. You’ve settled into your old routines, and the way your flesh is wired is that it’s an easy escape. It’s not your heart. If it was your heart, son, you wouldn’t care. But, you do.

Ahh, now that makes sense. My heart was changed when I received Christ. My desires and motivations are towards God. If my heart had not been changed, I wouldn’t care about doing right and fixing some of these issues in my life. But, I do care. I do want this. Then, I remembered a couple scriptures:

“Since you have heard all about him and have learned the truth that is in Jesus, throw off your old evil nature and your former way of life, which is rotten through and through, full of lust and deception. Instead, there must be a spiritual renewal of your thoughts and attitudes. You must display a new nature because you are a new person, created in God’s likeness–righteous, holy, and true.” Ephesians 4:21-24.

“Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will know what God wants you to do, and you will know how good and pleasing and perfect his will really is.” Romans 12:2.

This last one from Romans 12:2 really hit me. It gave very specific instructions on how to be transformed. Did you catch it? It’s not hard. You simply “Let God…”

That’s it. That’s all the work you need to do. Just let God. It’s not your responsibility to change the way you think and behave. That can be hard for those caught into the grasp of addictions. Your part of the deal is to simply let God transform the way you think.

What are some behaviors you’d like to change:

  • I want to stop smoking.
  • I want to lose weight.
  • I want to be a better father/mother/husband/wife.
  • I want to stop drinking or drugs.
  • I want to exercise more.
  • I want to read my Bible more.
  • I want to spend more time with God.
  • I want to go back to school.

How hard have you tried to change your behavior? How successful have you been with that? If you’re anything like me, it’s been quite a failed experience.

My prayers this week have simply been this, “Lord, I let you into my heart and into my mind. I let you into my thoughts, my patterns of thinking, my mind and let you have full access to transform my mind, and to renew my thinking. I let you in to change me, to transform me.”

Tuning into the voice of God

April 11, 2009 • 0 Comments

My wife and I attend Gateway Church here in the Dallas area, and we love our church. One of the ministries they have is called Freedom Ministry headed up by Pastor Bob Hamp. What an amazing ministry!

My wife and I were listening to one of his four core messages on Freedom Ministry called “The Kingdom of God” taught by Pastor Bob. In it, he shares a modern-day parable that I wanted to share with you.

The Kingdom of Heaven is like a radio station. Around us are thousands of radio signals that carry messages. Yet, we can’t hear those radio signals with our ears. The radio waves are transmitting right this very moment through our body, our brains, our being. Yet, you cannot see them, hear them, feel them–unless we have a receiver.

The receiver is a special electronic device that tunes into a specific frequency, and then converts those indiscernible radio waves into a different form that we can hear with our ears. But, without a receiver, there’s nothing to hear.

God’s voice is a lot like those radio waves. He’s “broadcasting” his love, his compassion and his faithfulness into our hearts 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, all the time. But, are our hearts tuned in? Or, have we “hardened our hearts” from receiving God’s love? Or, has the enemy gotten us off-tune so that we can’t hear the message of God’s love?

spectrum.jpgOne of my electrical engineering classes at college was the study of radio waves. We had this device called a spectrum analyzer. With it, we could sweep the frequency spectrum looking for broadcast signals. They were obvious from the spike. But, when no signal was present, you could see this thing called the “noise floor”.

There’s no such thing as zero noise–there’s always something there called radio noise. It’s a phenomenon where random, non-broadcasted signals are generated by a variety of naturally occurring sources–sun flares, noisry electronic equipment, cosmic noise, photons, etc. As you would sweep the spectrum on the analyzer, you would move through the noise floor looking for a very clear spike. That spike was the signal broadcast.

God’s voice is a lot like that. We often sweep the “noise floor” of our mind, thinking we’re picking up certain broadcasts, but often we find that it’s just noise. Maybe it’s noise from wounds in our hearts. Maybe it’s noise from the distractions of the day. Maybe it’s noise from the enemy.

Lately, I’ve been wrestling with this issue of spiritual noise in my life. I’ve drifted from hearing God’s voice clearly. I’m not tuned in, and I’ve spent weeks trying to tune back into the Voice. I know it’s there, and I know that tuning into it requires discipline. It also requires that I put aside the distractions.

Lord, let me tune into your Voice!

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