Solving the Mystery of the Human Condition

by Steven Gledhill for FREEdom from MEdom Project

What is my problem? Why am I not happy? What does it mean to be happy? Why am I not fulfilled? What does that even mean… to be fulfilled… content… satisfied? What really is it to be free? How would I know if and when I am content, satisfied, and fulfilled (whatever that really means)?

Let us begin by suggesting that we are subjected to and made vulnerable by the following factors: 1) Our own flawed imperfections, 2) The flawed imperfections of others, 3) our collective flawed imperfections profoundly affected realities of nature (universally, globally, and bodily), and 4) expectation and desire affected by factors one through three. The result is our ongoing, irrevocable degree of discontent and discomfort. We may just spinning our wheels, sinking deeper into the dread of disappointment, helpless on our own to redirect the course of all of it. It sounds so bleak.

I do know what disappointment feels like. I know what anxiety and stress feels like. I know what fear feels like, even desperation, for that matter. I know how it feels to be sad and discouraged. These feelings and experiences are far more obvious. Why is that?

What is it about the human condition that keeps us from experiencing fulfilling joy and satisfaction? How is discontentment tethered into the fabric of life’s experience? How is it that freedom feels as though it is beyond our reach?

¹⁴ So the trouble is not with the law (the highest moral standard meant for our survival as civilized people), for it is spiritual and good. The trouble is with me, for I am all too human, a slave to sin. ¹⁵ I don’t really understand myself, for I want to do what is right, but I don’t do it. Instead, I do what I hate. ¹⁶ But if I know that what I am doing is wrong, this shows that I agree that the law is good. ¹⁷ So I am not the one doing wrong; it is sin living in me that does it.

¹⁸ And I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. I want to do what is right, but I can’t. ¹⁹ I want to do what is good, but I don’t. I don’t want to do what is wrong, but I do it anyway. ²⁰ But if I do what I don’t want to do, I am not really the one doing wrong; it is sin living in me that does it.

²¹ I have discovered this principle of life—that when I want to do what is right, I inevitably do what is wrong. ²² I love God’s law with all my heart. ²³ But there is another power^[e] within me that is at war with my mind. This power makes me a slave to the sin that is still within me. ²⁴ Oh, what a miserable person I am! Who will free me from this life that is dominated by sin and death? ²⁵ Thank God! The answer is in Jesus Christ our Lord. So you see how it is: In my mind I really want to obey God’s law, but because of my sinful nature I am a slave to sin. Romans 7:14-25 (NLT)

Disappointed, Discouraged, and Distressed

While disappointed, discouraged and distressed, we tend to become anxious, stressed, and yes, angry. Why not be angry? You’re entitled. So am I. I get tired of the way things are. I am sick of the surprises that cost me. I know I am not perfect by any means, but what did I do to deserve that?

In your hours of darkness, have you ever felt like asking this of God?

God’s servant Job might be an extreme example of a good guy that allowed experience the worst of times. He was a wealthy family man that had it all; until he lost it all. His entire family was wiped out by disease. The livestock and land that represented Job’s immense wealth at that time was utterly destroyed.

Know this about the man, Job. He went through the worst of anything anyone can imagine. Job was a man that lived some 4000 years ago. His story is documented around 600 BC, according to the technology that dates this stuff. That is older than the book of Genesis in the Old Testament.

Job was a very prosperous man, the Elon Musk, of his time. He accumulated his wealth through intelligence, creativity, and had the dedication and determination for the work it would take to be the best he could be. He was compassionate, loving, gracious, and generous. Job was a godly man, willing to give back from the resources he knew and fully understood was the providence of God’s favor and immeasurable generosity.

Job’s suffering began quite suddenly, according to the first chapters of the book of Job.    Job experienced personal tragedy and trauma, again and again. He lost everything he had and lost everyone he loved, until he was literally all alone… and broke. Job’s would become exceedingly ill in his body. His suffering was so great that he cursed his own birth, insisting, “Why wasn’t I born dead? Why didn’t I die as I came from the womb? (Job 3:11, NLT)

Why? What had he done wrong?

The Bible passage above is Job complaining about his circumstances, fully aware that he is helpless to anything about it, and feeling like God is against him, punishing him simply because God is God, and Job is not. Would God do that?

Come on, have you ever felt that way?

Most people who claim not to believe in God typically have the issue described by Job, and refuse to accept that a rational, loving and powerful God would ever allow bad things to happen to good people. For that matter, how often does it appear that bad things don’t even happen to bad people? I am not referring to the margins or spectrum between what defines good (innocent of sin) and bad (guilty of sin). I am talking about those obviously wicked and evil, behaving from the depths of evil, expanding the parameters of all that is abhorrent.

For I envied the proud when I saw them prosper despite their wickedness. They seem to live such painless lives; their bodies are so healthy and strong. They don’t have troubles like other people; they’re not plagued with problems like everyone else. They wear pride like a jeweled necklace and clothe themselves with cruelty. These fat cats have everything their hearts could ever wish for! They scoff and speak only evil; in their pride they seek to crush others. They boast against the very heavens, and their words strut throughout the earth. And so the people are dismayed and confused, drinking in all their words. “What does God know?” they ask. “Does the Most High even know what’s happening?” Look at these wicked people—enjoying a life of ease while their riches multiply. Psalms 73:3-12 (NLT)

What about that? Have ever wondered about it? Be honest! There are always some who will say that they know that judgment is coming for the arrogantly wealthy who strut around with that self-centered smug on their face, even as they boast of their charitable, nurturing deeds to help the impoverished while they live in their mansions, hiring servants and drivers, and what not. And those who do evil, from their riches, or from a places of injustice and hate… or both? Well, they will one day, “in the end”, reap what they sow.

Yeah, we get all that. Asaph, the writer of Psalm 73 (above). He got that, too, as he would go on to write about it. He would go to say that what is coming for the worst of unrepentant sinners he wouldn’t wish on anyone. Not even his worst enemy.

But, back to those who are suffering discomfort and affliction right in the moment. It hurts too much to be thinking about those who have it good through selfish greed and ambition at the expense of others. They may get theirs in the end, but what about me, right now?

Job struggled in the same way. He’s not done complaining. He has a lot more to say. He’s just getting started.

As this conversation gets into the problem of human behavior, you need to recognize the behavioral process from our brain to what we do. Human behavior is originally motivated by feelings. Feelings activate beliefs (paradigms). Beliefs shape values. Values promote ideals. Ideals fuel thoughts. And thoughts drive behavior; often times in an instant.

The Study of Human Behavior

There are all kinds of questions regarding human behavior. How is it there are some people who are extraordinarily “good”? What motivates or inspires people towards goodness? Why are there those who are abhorrently evil? What is the motivation for evil thinking and behavior? How can someone who is so loving to family and loved ones, also be capable of bringing so much harm and terror into the lives of others for personal gain, or seemingly, just because, without much explanation for it. How is the spectrum so broad in respect to what people do for one another and what people do to each other?

How can one person be so humble, loving, compassionate, and genuinely generous and gracious; while another person—or the same person—can be so selfish, prideful, jealous,  hateful, antagonistic at the expense of someone else’s well being, and/or apathetic to the needs of others?

What is the difference between a healthy sense of conviction that motivates someone towards correction and doing better, and unhealthy guilt that that is internalized to the point of defining him- or herself… to the point of feeling trapped in it, sinking into the depths of shame?

What is going on in terms of how we think and what we feel that drives behavior? Why do we believe what we believe about ourselves, our lives, those living in our lives, and the world we live in?

It is our nature to react to what we feel over responding to what we know reasonably makes more sense in a given situation and circumstance. Typically, this is referred to as impulse. These impulsive responses to stimuli is motivated by our perceived need to gratify what we believe we desire, and/or to protect ourselves from what we fear.

You have no doubt heard the expression, “Think before you act (react).”

What does that really mean? Why is this so important to the conversation?

“Sometimes we do not see things as they are, we see them as we are.” —a centuries old proverb

How is that even “Christian” people lose their temper, hang on to resentment, are envious—jealous perhaps, even covetous of someone else’s livelihood; struggle with discontentment, battle anxiety, are burdened and overwhelmed by stress and worry, have insecurity and poor self-esteem? Why do people of faith lie, cheat, and feel the need to protect and defend themselves? Why do those who claim to trust God continue to desire what they don’t have?

Giving, Taking, & Receiving

Is desire generally motivated by what a person has or does not have? To say both, I suppose) is accurate. However, it should be understood that discontent and dissatisfaction (two words for the same emotion) is what is distressing causing discomfort, which can be painful. The attitude of discomfort is one of taking rather giving.

The initial impulse of any living species is to take. Just as animal species have a predatory nature, humans, while usually more civilized (though there are plenty of exceptions), also have a predatory nature. I do not hunt as a predator for my meat, but indirectly I am the predator. I let someone else do the “hunting” for me. Then I eat the meat for the protein, but also because I like to eat meat.

Young children, when unsupervised by adults tend to demonstrate survival-of -the-fittest behavior, taking advantage of the weaker children as prey, so to speak. Throw some desirable toys into the middle of a room full of unsupervised toddlers. Who gets to play with the most desired toys? The child who wins over the other children. Maybe it’s the biggest child, the strongest child, and typically, the most selfish child. The child plays with the toy until he or she is done with it and casts it aside. Then the child closest to the toy gets a chance; that is, until another bigger, stronger, more selfish and aggressive child comes along and takes the toy from the weaker child. The strongest, most selfish and aggressive children take the more desirable toys away from the other weaker children. This happens in daycare facilities where the children outnumber the adult facilitators by enough that they can at the very least hurt each other’s feelings.

Who are the weaker children? Are they the smaller children, insecure of their size compared to the bigger children? Yes. Also, the other perceived weaker children are those who have better role model parents that teach giving and sharing while modeling humility. These are the children that to struggle to understand the aggressive, selfish attitude of the children that take what they want when they want with little to no regard for anyone else. It is the weaker children crying in their confusion and disappointment. They struggle to understand how and why certain children can be so mean and ruthless.  It is also when children experience aggression from from the more selfish children acting as bullies. For toddlers and children a bit older, to be bullied by more predatory children can be considered to be a traumatic experience.

Children that learn to share and model giving at a young age are often taken advantage of by the young children that model selfishness. Observing and experiencing selfish behavior feeds into their primary impulse to be selfish. Not only do they observe predatory behavior in their growing up experience, but themselves are bullied (abused) by predatory parents that yell at and beat on their children with little to no regard for their physical and psychological well being. So, what you come to discover is that even the most selfish children are just as vulnerable to being victims of trauma from the more selfish predatory parents; parents who were bullied and traumatized by their more predatory parents. The the cycle predatory abuse continues generationally.

So, just like animal species, human beings are predators that take advantage of weaker prey, and the prey are predators of even weaker prey. Then there are those occasions when the so-called weaker prey become intellectually superior to their predators. there is a shift, a transition of power. The former predators may find themselves working for the former prey, complaining of injustice, that their employers are not fair and are perhaps on some level merciless to employees with bad attitudes.

Unless we are taught to give, to have empathy and compassion for others, to extend mercy when we have been wronged, to forgive instead of holding onto anger and resentment because of injustice (both experienced and perceived) as we see it modeled while we are growing up, we will remain predators fearing that being perceived as weak will make us vulnerable as prey.

People bullied as children grow up with trauma not typically recognized as such. They may trend toward struggling to trust other people, including those they care about. If they have been victims of physical aggression (including sexual abuse) and violence, and/or have been subject to patterns of emotional abuse, having seen abuse and violence, and perhaps sexual assault against loved ones, they feel (and likely are) vulnerable as prey to those kinds of experiences in relationships.

Should these weaker individuals enter into relationships with healthier individuals that trend towards giving and receiving in relationships with others, they find that giving is a significant challenge when it is perceived as a demonstration of weakness. The last thing wounded people want to be is prey to those they perceive to be as predators, when the person he or she is in relationship with has learned to be givers, expressing empathy and compassion. Wounded people in need of healing from trauma can be so mistrusting that their defensive position in the relationship can become offensive to the healthier person in the relationship until they themselves unwittingly transition being the predator.

What a predicament, this whole predator-prey conflict. It is rife with incongruence and disorder.

No one wants to consider the reality that we are predatory, especially young children, but it is what we are to one degree or another. This is science, not theory. This essay will get into the neuroscience of our selfish predatory nature. The Bible supports this as well.

But each one is tempted when he is drawn away by his own desires and enticed. Then, when desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, brings forth death. James 1:14-15 (NLT)

For wherever there is jealousy and selfish ambition, there you will find disorder and evil of every kind. James 3:16 (NLT)

Until people learn to do good, modeling goodness, they are not impulsively motivated towards goodness. What does it mean to be good? According to Merriam-Webster, words defining good include virtuous, morally right, commendable, loyal, and honorable. Words defining goodness include character, honesty, decency, virtuous, righteous, integrity, and morality.

Allow me to suggest that linked to all of those defining words and descriptions is giving. Givers tend to be nurturers. Nurturers provide nourishment that promotes growth and advancement through the provision of nutrition, education, encouragement, support, and maintenance. It is well-nurtured children that learn to do good. These children, even as toddlers, learn to share, by learning to give.

When giving is reinforced by the receiver of the gift reciprocating by giving back, givers are learning by their own experience to deny the initial impulse to take; that giving is more satisfying than taking.

You should remember the words of the Lord Jesus: “‘It is more blessed (favorable) to give than to receive.” Acts 20:35 (NLT)

Notice that it is more blessed to give than to receive. Receiving is also a favorable; just not as favorable as giving. If it more favorable, advantageous, and satisfying to give than to receive, then it is certainly more beneficial and satisfying to give than to take. This can be a challenging lesson to learn. Especially, when it not being taught well or modeled well.

When children grow through childhood and adolescence into adulthood that are still primarily takers, they tend to find it particularly difficult to be accepted among those who are more mature adults. When takers struggle to manage the natural impulse to be selfish in how they behave as adolescent youth into adulthood, they may act out in ways that are considered antisocial.

People who are more intellectually clever often use their power of reasoning according to the dictation of their emotional impulses. They may routinely lie and steal, display aggressive behavior towards others, present themselves as depraved, be sexually predatory and aggressive, and more prone towards violence. Takers tend to be drawn—attracted—to other takers that, when applying emotionally-driven intellect towards extreme behavior can prove to be vile and dangerous, whether individually or as a group (gang).

Takers in general are never fully satisfied, and lead unfulfilled lives. Whatever they have taken is rarely ever enough. Takers are in perpetual need of more and better, with little idea that they are what they are. They typically do not have empathy or the sensitivity and compassion to realize that the nature to take is a flaw they have born with. Eventually, most takers are dealt with, via some form of rejection. They may be shunned by family and friends, and struggle to make and keep friends. Sometimes they become prey to those more predatory than they are and themselves get hurt. They may eventually become subject to the laws of a civilized society and dealt with, detained by law enforcement and legal justice.

We are all born to be takers. As you continue read how it is are nature to take, and that we become slaves to our nature to take, until we are set free from our taking nature. The first parts of this essay is about describing the problem every person who has ever lived experiences. Later on, you will have the opportunity to discover how to solve this problem common to all of us.

Giving is Loving, Loving is Giving

It all had to begin somewhere. Someone spoke every word into existence until they became socially accepted as normal and typical. Every condition and expectation had a beginning somewhere in time by someone, and then other individuals, families, and communities after that. Established conditions and expectations grew into moral standards and expectations. Throughout this process developed some semblance of common sense. The expectations that were unreasonable were dismissed; they were not for the benefit of relationship between the persons and communities, civilizations and societies. Those expectations that were beneficial and constructive to relationship between throughout the development of moral standards and expectations, otherwise understood to be common sense, were adopted and put into practice in society.

Eventually, from all of that came what we know and understand to be the core values of individuals that would prove to be beneficial to individuals interacting with other individuals in what we know to be relationships. In relationships we have both autonomy and community; companionship and fellowship. People would need to trust one another and mutually respect each other. Within relationships are the values of belonging, acceptance, and loyalty. In stable relationships there would be honesty, sincerity, empathy, and compassion. Since no one is perfect, to maintain stable relationships, there would be mercy and forgiveness. There would be sincere regret and compassion when human flaws in some way offended the core values of stable relationships, otherwise known as conflict. The appearance of inequity and injustice in stable relationships would require willing correction necessary to restore to equality and congruence within the structure of stable interactions.

Then there is the matter of attraction and love in relationships. While mutual attraction and love is to be enjoyed, the level of expectation increases immensely. Conditions and moral standards are heightened to levels that are weighted heavily in relationships. The emotion and profoundly spiritual element found in love is meant to be experienced with a fulfilling degree of joy. And while that is the case in love-oriented relationships, there also lies the reality of disappointment when imperfect people bring their flawed human condition into relationships with those they love. The lofty expectations instilled in loving relationships does inherently carry the weight of uneasiness and stress that proves itself to be burdensome.

It is not the nature of human beings to give. We are inclined to take what we believe we deserve. Entitlement, by nature, is a flaw of the human condition. As previously emphasized, giving is a learned element of the human experience. Giving is essential to loving relationships. What about relationships when people interacting with one another may share some of the same foundational core values are express them in general, but when there is not the same kind of love necessary to raise the bar when it comes to moral standards and expectations?

How long would that take? What about disagreement? How would reason be defined, commonly understood and recognized, and therefore established? Who is to say what common sense actually is when it comes to conflict within the communal system of core values? What about self-interest—desire? What about self-preservation—need, hunger, shelter, and well-being? What about corruption within a society? What about the effect and impact of self-indulgent ambition and greed contrary to commonly accepted expectations for relationships?

With all of that comes this identification with rules, conditions and expectations, for relationships, civilization, and community to in effect be possible. Laws then need to be established to hopefully maintain stability within a civilized society. Some within societies are identified as leaders to govern the communities within civilized societies to maximize equality and stability, and minimize poverty, oppression, and injustice. Then comes division within the societal structure. It starts within families and extends into communities. There is a breakdown in what have known to be reasonable expectations.

When rules and laws are broken badly and often enough, there exists questions about the expectations, conditions, rules, and laws. When the majority within the societal structure continue on to then confront what has been reasonably understood core values within a society, it is a broken system that would appear to be doomed to fail. Also, when there are a few within a society that are understood to hold the majority of resources and power within the societal structure, the rest of those in that society are understood to be powerless under the weight of the power and authority of the few. What kind of society is that? It too is doomed to fail.

The science in these last several paragraphs lies within the scientific reality of the human brain. The self-centered, egocentric nature of the human condition defies core values within societal norms. What exists is the opposite of what most would consider to be core values: anger, failure, anxiety, jealousy, betrayal, rejection, abandonment, poverty, oppression, aggression, trauma, shame, violence, loss, grief, guilt, entitlement, greed, danger, risk, harm, tragedy, pain, struggle, dread, etc.

When we do adopt the attitude of giving, and enter into relationships with other givers, having discovered the satisfying benefit that comes with a reciprocal pattern of giving, receiving, and giving back, it proves to be especially gratifying.

Jesus framed giving and receiving as loving. It is not within our nature to love. Love is seldom unconditional. Relationships are always wrought with conditions. Honesty, trust, integrity, loyalty, charity, empathy, compassion, mercy (forgiveness), sacrifice, and grace have everything to do with giving. Loving is all about giving. Giving is all about loving. Giving and love are most certainly symbiotic in relationship with one another.

Jesus tells us very clearly that the only way to enjoy a loving relationship with one another is to love God first. To love God from the core of our being requires us to humble ourselves. We must find a way to deny the initial impulse to be selfish. The action of giving in this instance is to ask God, our maker, for the strength to be humble. Once we possess the will to humble enough to love God, we possess the will and motivation to love others by giving to others with the same interest and enthusiasm to invest in, and direct our energy towards loving others by way of giving to others.

“The Lord our God is the one and only Lord. And you must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind, and all your strength.’ The second is equally important: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.” No other commandment is greater than these.” Mark 12:30-31 (NLT)

Jesus said to love God from within and throughout the core of our being, and to love our neighbors as ourselves. If we cannot get it right how to truly love ourselves, how are we supposed to love our neighbors with the integrity and authenticity intended in the words of Jesus?

So, if you agree and find it reasonable what you have read to this point, it means that you always knew it to be true. In other words, it makes so much sense intellectually that you already know the truth and scientific reality of all of this.

Most people would say out loud that giving feels more rewarding than taking does. The notion of giving feels good, yet we are compelled in a way to give in to the natural impulse to take, even when it is at the expense of other people. Taking is the opposite of giving, going against what most would commonly suggest and believe intellectually they value; what we would say we value. So why then? How can we value intellectually that giving is better and then in ways that are obvious or subtle continue to give in to the initial impulse to take, even when it is destructive to relationships with the ones you love most?

“Say what you mean. Mean what you say. But, don’t say it mean.” —public domain

Validation, Affirmation, and this Need to Win

If giving is considered to be a premium value, seemingly held by most people, then why do we trend towards vehemently insisting on being right? Why are we so compelled compete to win? How is it that being right is so gratifying, especially at the expense of proving to someone else that they are wrong? How is it that most of us find it so necessary to win at someone else’s expense. For every winner there is a loser. Loser are the ones that are expected to be gracious while winners get to celebrate their victory. The need to win and be right is so tantalizing that we get caught up with people we don’t necessarily care about. It could be a random encounter with a stranger, or a group of folks we don’t know all that well, if at all, and yet we found ourselves debating (a nicer word than arguing) over something, obsessed with our need to be right. Why?

Whether it is in athletics, business, politics, or playing leisurely card games, winning is everything. During political seasons people will comment on social media with loved ones and also complete strangers and say things that are rude and cutting to make their point… as if anyone is going to change anyone else’s mind.

The subject has not changed from giving and receiving versus taking. The problem with competition that has winning and losing as its priority is that competition is a matter of taking the prize. One side is competing to take what both sides are “fighting” for. So, too often, winners are validated while losers are sullen, envious if not jealous, and perhaps resentful, and possibly bitter.

Life is a maze. Some people are better at it then others. In a civilized society, there are those that prosper through giving as they find there way through the maze, and others who prosper by cutting through the maze in a way that is selfish by any means necessary. There is typically consequence for that which is considered by most to be rather conspicuous, therefore drawing substantial attention and criticism. With that comes pressure, stress, and anxiety.

Others struggle to find their way through the maze and get stuck. They need and want help. There are those disabled by disease, addiction, mental health problems, disability, tragedy, and disaster. Some learn how to get help and others do not. The ones unable or unwilling to seek help in ways that support the giving and receiving paradigm fail to experience validation and affirmation. Some will identify this as a problem of social and/or domestic injustice. They typically will call attention to themselves but seldom find resolution to their problem. They typically will not win fighting for what they feel and believe they deserve. Those who think and behave in defiance of the initial impulse to fight for what they feel and believe they deserve, expressing a willingness to help themselves as they receive help from givers do find their way through the maze over time while experiencing validation and affirmation along the way.

Winning is validating and assuring while losing is deflating, which produces the logical outcome of insecurity. It is ultimately the insecurity of those not validated by achievement and success that feel the weight of injustice.

Why is validation and affirmation so important to us? And, why is not being validated so discomforting? Why do we invest so much emotion into not being disappointed, remedying discomfort by any means necessary.

We can rejoice, too, when we run into problems and trials, for we know that they help us develop endurance. And endurance develops strength of character, and character strengthens our confident hope of salvation. And this hope will not lead to disappointment. For we know how dearly God loves us, because he has given us the Holy Spirit to fill our hearts with his love. Romans 5:3-5 (NLT)

Who enjoys being overwhelmed by challenges? How many of us would say that we rejoice through times of trial? What does it even mean to rejoice in developing endurance that develops strength of character? The central point of emphasis is the growing confidence in the hope of salvation.

Salvation is usually interpreted through the lens of a religious outcome, but what salvation is really about is recovering what has been lost; the experience of a new and better life. There is a transformation from being primarily a dissatisfied taker to a satisfied giver willing to receive what has been given, with the attitude of desiring to give back as the opportunity presents itself.

How do we lose hope and confidence of salvation during times of immense challenge, especially when the challenge is so overwhelming that we feel as though we are under water drowning, unable to get back to the surface?

It is trusting in what we feel in the heat of the moment… any moment… that leads to disappointment, triggering what most would consider to be undesirable feelings, and patterns of thinking and behavior that robs us of joy. It is even true when it comes to people of faith. If faith in God, according to the Bible (the highest selling book in history by a wide margin*), never disappoints, then why so often are we disappointed in ourselves, someone else, the world we live in, and all of the above?

* It is estimated, according to the Guinness Book of World Records, that 5-7 billion copies of the Bible have sold since the 15th century with the advent of print technology. It is estimated that in the 21st century, 80 million copies of the Bible are printed each year.

The Lens of our Experience

It is vital to the quality of the way we live our lives to consider the lens of our life experience. Examining life experiences of pain and struggle, pleasure and delight, the reward of success, disappointment associated with failure and failed expectations, relationship harm and stress, being victimized by betrayal, rejection, the trauma of abandonment, abuse, and assault that leads to feeling paralyzed by fear, stuck in shame, loss and grief, and other numerous factors, construct the context and contrast within the lens of how we encounter and experience everything.

Whether counseling adults or youth, what I share next tends to be a revelation to them. I ask them to list all of the ways in which they see themselves. Their lists are always going to contain positive traits (characteristics and abilities) that they typically like about themselves (strengths). And more typical, the emphasis on the negative traits (imperfections and flaws) that they do not like about themselves (weaknesses).

Individuals and families receiving treatment are not doing so because they trust the more positive perceptions of they have of themselves. They have identified themselves by their faults, overburdened by failure, overwhelmed by what they cannot control, and typically devoid of the ability to manage the stressors in their lives, which have left them feeling hopeless, empty, and less worthy and deserving of good in their lives, having concluded that their best alternative is to find an escape or some form of remedy for intense discomfort. They have become easily triggered by what they find stressful. They trust so much in what they are feeling in response to life experiences that they are lost and drowning in what they believe to be true about themselves, their lives, and the world they live in.

How is it that we come to trust more in what we feel in the absence of what we value and want most, over trusting in what we know and understand reasonably makes more sense? Why is it so challenging to consider the possibilities and opportunities that exist if given the chance to thoughtfully discern what logically makes more sense in our decision making?

Once I have asked my group to develop a comprehensive list all of the ways in which they see themselves, both negatively (weaknesses), and positively (strengths), I ask them to share with their group of peers sitting around the table what they feel comfortable sharing. Since we typically foster a therapeutic environment where they have developed a strong sense of rapport with one another, they will usually share everything on their list. Much of what they share is revealing of their pain and overwhelming discomfort that led them to seek help. What is just as remarkable are the positive qualities on their lists. (Of course, they often have to be strongly encouraged to focus on their positive qualities.)

So then I ask them, “Looking at your list of the negative ways that you see yourself, if you have to choose—and for this exercise you cannot say both—would you say that the negatives you listed about yourself are mostly motivated by your feelings about your life experiences, or are they primarily motivated by what you know about yourself that intellectually and reasonably makes the most sense?”

Almost entirely without exception, the answer to the question is, “Feelings.”

Then, I ask the same question about the positive qualities they have listed. What are the positive qualities  motivated by… feelings driven by life experiences or are they primarily an indicator of what they know intellectually and reasonably makes the most sense?

Almost entirely without exception, the answer to the question is, “What I know about myself.”

Even teenagers and sometimes preadolescent children comprehend this. How do they understand it so clearly… like I said, almost without exception? But, they do. They get it.

Which begs the question, “Then, why do they… and we… trust so much in what we feel over what we know?” I ask individuals to ponder their efforts to escape and/or remedy pain and struggle because they trusted in what they were feeling at the expense of what they know to be most true.” I then explain to them that there really is no such thing as “most true”. It’s either true or it’s not. I help them to understand that trusting in feelings is a betrayal of what they know, understand, and agree reasonably makes the most sense.

Trusting in feelings is a betrayal of what we know intellectually to be reasonable. We must filter what we feel through what we know rationally makes the most sense.

Please do not misunderstand. We need our feelings… obviously. Feelings are essential to experiencing joy and pleasure, security and assurance. Feelings are incorporated into our sense of hope and peace, calm and rest. Feelings can guide us through healthy fear for our own protection. They allow us to measure risk when filtered through reason and logic according to what we know. Feelings are necessary for motivation and optimism. Feelings are unavoidable when experiencing compassion and love, and the pure delight and enjoyment of our experiences, and connection in relationships.

The matter at hand has to do with being capable of filtering what we feel through what we know, according to what we have learned to be reasonable, sensible, and rational. It is according to this reality that our most authentic values are established. It should be what shapes our system of beliefs. Our beliefs and values should align, but they too often don’t. What we believe is interpreted through the lens of our experience and the feelings emanating from pain and discomfort. It is, then, what to easily establishes what we believe and shapes what we value.

For too many, pain and struggle has devolved into agony and misery. This is an unfortunate reality since so much of life experience has produced what is commonly referred to as cognitive distortions.

Cognitive Distortions Due to Irrational Beliefs

Substance abuse that so often leads to addiction evokes problems of at-risk problematic behavior built on cognitive distortions promoting and supporting an irrational belief system. Distressing life experiences shrouded in overwhelming discomfort are remedied by consuming alcohol and drugs.

Substances that have depressant effects aid in depressing those feelings that are painful. So long as the behavior is reinforced; in other words, the use of alcohol and drugs is in fact relieving one’s discomfort, as painful as it may be, the substance user will continue the behavior of using so long as it is reinforced and believed to be effective. It is what seems to make the most sense… until it is no longer effective. The inherent problem with alcohol and drug use to relieve discomfort and pain is that due to the body developing tolerance to the chemical, the user has to increase the amount consumed to obtain the intoxicating effect needed to remedy discomfort. No one sets out to become an alcoholic or a drug addict, but addiction is the unintended consequence.

For people who struggle with the classification of addiction as a disease, addicts end up making choices, such as choosing being high over the quality of positive relationships, even with those they love most. Anyone with a healthy degree of common sense would agree that the behavioral choices of addicted people are unhealthy; sick even.

“How can you choose being high over your family… over your children?”

“Why would you risk everything for another drink?”

It is a sick person that would do that.

It is the same for those who choose physical and verbal aggression (including violence) as a means of resolving their discomfort. Whether it be physically aggressive behavior or verbally aggressive behavior, those who trust their feelings over what they know and understand to be reasonable, have given into the irrational belief that being aggressive will lead to a positive outcome. There may be certain cultures, perhaps street gangs, or a criminal lifestyle of some kind, where aggression and violence at its surface may appear acceptable, but in the end someone pays a steep price, and there is a degree of pain and struggle for everyone involved.

If you are not as exposed to witnessing physically aggressive violent behavior among adults, you have certainly seen it in children. They will take from each other, scream at each other, push another child to the ground, and hit each other, without any sense or feeling of conviction or conscience regarding the feelings of the child they have victimized.

Competitors in games, sports, business, formulation of ideas etc., will often do the same, doing whatever feels necessary to get ahead, to be better than…, at the expense of another, without enough consideration, empathy, or compassion for how it affects others.

Consider this…

Everything we do, and everything we say, typically produces one of two outcomes:

1. It draws us closer to want we want and value most, or

2. It drags us farther away from what we want and value most.

That is way to simple and sensible. It makes perfect sense. We can absolutely know and believe it to make sense, but then, having given into the feelings we trust so easily, we do what is most risky, destructive, harmful, and painful for ourselves and everyone affected by our choices, until we are taken the opposite direction from where we want to be.

You make a choice, act on that choice, and then… have to live with that choice.

Like addiction, we do the very thing we know rationally not to do, and suffer the consequence. When it becomes a pattern, it is just as “sick” as addiction.

The trouble is with me, for I am all too human, a slave to sin. I don’t really understand myself, for I want to do what is right, but I don’t do it. Instead, I do what I hate. Romans 7:14-15 (NLT) 

Where things become extremely complex is the study of the brain and the components within the cognitive systems engaged in perceptions and understanding that prove to be irrational regarding feelings, thought distortions, and behavior. Most studies of the brain focus on two key elements of how the brain operates: the emotional brain (the limbic system that envelops the thalamus), and the rational thinking brain (frontal lobes and prefrontal cortex). There are neurotransmitters (such as those listed in the table below), signals traveling from neuron to neuron via electronic impulses, influenced through stress-inducing stimuli that come in every form through each and every moment-by-moment life experience.

There are two key components within the brain, the thinking center of the brain often referred to as the rational brain, and what is known as the emotional brain. These two areas within the brain need to work in tandem with one another, and when they do life is, more often than not, enjoyed and not so stressful. But for most people, the struggle is when the emotional brain overpowers the prefrontal cortex where most critical thinking, emotional regulation and judgment occurs, and by natural progression, chaos ensues. The executive function of the brain is overruled by emotion and no longer functioning at an executive level. This is when these cognitive thought distortions occur, grow, and intensify.

There is a vast wealth of science pertaining to how the brain processes every experience and emotion you have ever had. If you held a living human brain in your hands, it would appear to be a mushy, slimy thing. You would have no idea that it is within this organ inside your head where every cognitive reflex, impulse, feeling, thought, value, interpretation, and belief you have ever had takes place.

There is so, so much about life experience that has had such an impact on the human condition that it sifts its way into having some degree of influence on everything we do. When someone has been wounded emotionally, especially when someone has experienced one or more trauma experiences in their lives, the emotional injury has profound impact on the person’s innermost self. They are typically left struggling to try to function at all. People who have experienced trauma tend to hold themselves responsible for something they had no control over. Still, they are embattled with the notion that they somehow could have prevented the event. It is emotional damage rooted in unwarranted shame.

“This awful thing happened to me because I am an awful person.”

“I did a bad thing because I am a bad person.”

“I am ugly.”

“I am beyond repair.”

“No one can love me.”

“I do not deserve to ever be happy.”

These, too, are cognitive distortions. Should someone experience flashbacks, nightmares, or even post-traumatic stress-induced psychosis (audio and/or visual hallucinations of the abuser), they can feel as if there is no hope that they will ever get better; the real sense that there is no hope for them. They may feel worthless and empty inside.

People who have grown up in highly dysfunctional families, particularly where there is physical, sexual, and/or verbal abuse (by the way, all abuse contains some form of emotional abuse), there will inevitably be value distortions and irrational beliefs within and throughout the culture of that family. The emotional damage if left untreated will most likely lead to patterns and cycles of emotionally abusive relationships going forward.

When people live each day to merely survive, entirely ruled by feelings while enslaved into a shame-dominated existence, they cannot help themselves and are desperate for support. They are convinced that they are without hope that anyone can help them until they actually receive some help that is effective. Until the help comes though, they can be thinking that the only way out is to turn to the extreme. In most cases, not every case, they find a way to reach out for help.

In the meantime, cognitive distortions fuel irrational beliefs. Livelihoods seem as though they are stuck in mud, depressed, and hardly motivated to do much of anything; not necessarily because they aren’t hungry (a metaphor)… they are starving! They just don’t have the appetite for anything. The absence of joy leaves a vacancy that will be occupied by something else; typically something containing risk with the potential for harm.

While under the weight of their misery, cognitive distortions abound. Though cognitive thought distortions can be quite subtle in the ways they manifest themselves, they tend to drift to one pole or another, either this or that extreme. Self-regulation is so challenging that it might seem impossible. Below are some examples. Which of these might you identify with?

Compatibility & Consistency of Faith & Science

What is also critical to the understanding of brain chemistry and function is that we are not only only cognitive beings, but spiritual beings as well. Have you ever experienced something so profound that it touched your soul? Where is the human soul in any diagram, chart, map, or table of the human brain and central nervous system? How are neurotransmissions and cognitive processes and function affected by spiritual experiences that impact profoundly your inner being to the core?

What does it mean to be spiritual? How can someone be connected spiritually to something or someone? Is spirituality more than some vaguely ambiguous idea? If so, how can it be relevant and applicable to anything substantive? How can there be transformative power (empowering) in something or someone you cannot see?

Is spirituality merely a human construct developed to be self-soothing on some emotional level, without a foundation worthy of building something upon it that is truly useful and beneficial? What about the notion of a higher power that individuals seeking out transformative change come to believe in? Is it real… like gravity or WiFi signals, which cannot be seen but is universally believed to be real?

Can someone believe in a higher power without getting caught up into something religious? Can someone believe in God without it being something religious? What if Jesus is considered as central to the transformative paradigm of recovering from the problem of our self-centered inclinations?

Does one need to be religious to believe the historical evidence that supports the fact that Jesus lived around 2000 years ago and was executed on a Roman cross? Is it crazy to believe the historical documentation from first-century historians that the tomb Jesus’ body was laid in was empty three days after he was crucified to death?  

Let’s break it all down so that this makes sense.

As slaves to selfishness, inclined to do the opposite of what we value at our core, our sinful consequences to one degree or another, manifests misery. Considering the science of the human brain, which instinctually is wired to take due to selfish desire, drawn towards selfish motivation, intentional towards immediate self-gratification that drives the kind of behavior that produces harmful outcomes (consequences) and death (John 1:14-15), what is to be done about it before we self-destruct as a civilization?

Does it not become increasingly clear that there is a need for a true—not imagined or idealistic—higher power? Is there not a need for God? How did we even come to be as human beings? Did we come from originally from nothing? Did life, in all its forms, come into existence from some vague mysterious force or energy in the universe? How is that proven with scientific evidence? Of course, there was a big bang! How do I know? I suppose, because I read it in a text book that was written by human people, who taught from it.

What banged? How did it bang? Why did it bang? There are all sorts of theories; some generally accepted as scientific fact. But no one was there, so it is still theory. Something inspired geologists, physicists, biologists, neurologists, mathematicians, astronomers, archeologists, engineers, and every other kind of scientist, to develop through centuries of research what we read and are taught is fact about the origination of life. They have written and taught these facts as the origins of existence and forms of life that began billions of years ago. Yet, when it comes to the Bible, so many find it less than credible that authors can be inspired by the God that made the heavens and the earth, that life originated with God being the catalyst for whatever evolution is, to write about something that occurred anywhere from thousands to billions of years ago?

I believe it to be a matter of scientific fact is that something (or someone) had to always exist. Something cannot come from nothing. So, if God (or whatever one chooses to call God) did not always exist, what did? This is a fair, intellectual question that does have an answer that is absolute, whatever that answer may be.

Whatever always existed required within it the ingredients of life and the capability to create life, or at least reproduce it. I believe it to be whom I call God. Why? 1) It makes the most logical sense to my intellect, and 2) I have experienced God through relationship and experiences that cannot be explained any other way. I do not speak for anyone else, though I have heard dozens of accounts from others who have shared their experiences that bear proof through evidence that God exists as real, that he originated the creative process that we know to be life. God created gravity, photosynthesis, the process of the growth of all living things, and anything else you can think of that had to originate somewhere.

Have you considered everything that has to go just right for life on planet earth, and our lives as human beings to even be possible?

The earth is spinning a thousand miles and hour. It is some 25,000 miles in diameter, and you go around it once every day. To get around the sun in a year, the earth is moving some 67,000 miles per hour, and our solar system, is zipping around the center of the galaxy at just under a half million miles per hour. By the way, the galaxy is on the move as well. Do you feel it? Are you dizzy? Motion sickness, anyone?

What about the gravitational and magnetic push-pull forces throughout the universe? It is commonly acknowledged that the order maintained within and throughout the universe has everything to do with gravity. These universal gravitational and magnetic forces do not have a mind of their own. It cannot be some random energy source or entity, quantum physics and mechanics, and/or anything else, that contains the power and authority to somehow in some way just make it happen. For a scientist or anyone else to believe that, why not believe in God?

Remember, the horrors of Job and everything he said to God about is horrific onslaught of experiences? Remember, that he suggested it would have been better had he not survived his birth? Well, God did respond to Job. Why why I bring this up now? What I am about to report to you was written some 2600 years ago. What did the writer know or remotely understand about the earth’s atmosphere, stratosphere, photosynthesis, gravity, human reproduction, or the science of anything? Check this out:

Then the Lord answered Job from the whirlwind:

The first thing to grapple with is when this was written about the regulating of the order of the universe. The Old Testament book of Job is estimated to have been written between 1700 and 1900 B.C. (the oldest written words in the Bible). That is nearly 4000 years ago! It is before telescopes and everything else utilized to measure anything about the universe. Someone was already given insight into the realm of brain function into cognitive process that produces reason and intention.

Written in this montage are the laws of physics and universal process. Job is asked by God if what he thinks he understands can be applied to regulate the laws of physics related to planet earth and everything that has to go just right for anything about living on the earth to be remotely possible? Then, for good measure, he throws in at the end, what this writing is really all about: the intuition of the heart (emotion) and the instinct of the mind (rational thought) as it relates to how we see ourselves, our lives, our world, and everything in it.

Today, because of phenomenal technology built into telescopes and satellites, scientists know about black holes millions and billions of times larger than our son being within twenty, thirty, forty some light years apart from each other (each light year representing almost six trillion miles), orbiting each other without colliding (because of perfect push-pull gravitational forces) at up to a hundred times per second. When this occurs gravitational waves move through space at millions of light years per second.

“The most remarkable insights of recent years came from a young theoretical physicist at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, Alan Guth, who in 1979 developed an “inflationary theory” that “explained” the first fractional second of the universe, the coming into being of matter, and many puzzling features of the present cosmos. In effect, the inflation envisioned by Guth set the Big Bang into motion… His theory holds promise of showing that the present form of the universe is the inevitable consequence of physical laws that “predated” the cosmos. In his theory, arbitrary and chance are removed from the creation. It is perhaps not too presumptuous to suggest that God and physics are unified by the concept of cosmic inflation.” —Eugene Mallove, astronautical engineer, Holliston, Massachusetts

This has led scientists to consider that the big bang happened so fast that the universe may have initially been formed in less than a second; perhaps its expansion occurred over trillionths of one second. As hard as it is to wrap one’s mind around God always existing, try wrapping your mind around that.

“I have looked into most philosophical systems and I have seen that none will work without God… Science is incompetent to reason upon the creation of matter itself out of nothing. We have reached the utmost limit of our thinking faculties when we have admitted that because matter cannot be eternal and self-existent it must have been created.” —James Clerk Maxwell, physicist and mathematician, credited with formulating classical electromagnetic theory

This passage above from Job chapter 38 was written some 2600 years ago! How did the writer know to write what he did if he was not directed by God with spiritual inspiration to do so? How would the writer know about movement of stars within and throughout the universe? How awesome is that?! It’s stunning!

“Astronomers now find they have painted themselves into a corner because they have proven, by their own methods, that the world began abruptly in an act of creation to which you can trace the seeds of every star, every planet, every living thing in this cosmos and on the earth. And they have found that all this happened as a product of forces they cannot hope to discover… That there are what I or anyone would call supernatural forces at work is now, I think, a scientifically proven fact.” —Robert Jastrow, astronomer and physicist, founded NASA’s Goddard Institute of Space Studies

Once this has been established that God exists, is the originator of life, is alive, and even present, we can talk about the root at the core of human imperfection: sin, whether we approve of the word or not. Even Job was not without sin. While he was highly esteemed by God, he was an imperfect man, living in an imperfect world, experiencing the injustice perpetuated by sin in the world.

This matter must be addressed to assess the problem for what it is. What about the problem of sin? Who even came up with the notion of sin to describe human imperfection? Once definitively acknowledging that the higher power of the universe is God, we can accept that God has set the standards, expectations, and conditions, for living the human life. Without God as the sovereign authority, where lies the hope for anything going forward?

All of the constructs of our very existence lie within these established standards, conditions, and expectations. They are referred to as laws, rules, procedures, protocols, hierarchy, roles, healthy human characteristics, and social norms, necessary for civilized balance.

What the Bible refers to as sin is our imperfect attempt to remedy the discomfort of our discontent; our need to have our hunger and thirst satisfied until we are fulfilled, wanting for nothing. Sin is are inability and unwillingness to deny our initial impulse to take and fight in order to win at the expense of the needs of others.

It’s a Feeling Problem

Because we are imperfect and flawed, we cannot on our own achieve contentment. We can recognize intellectually that givers are generally happier than takers, since takers can rarely experience the fullness of satisfaction. We typically understand the reciprocal giving and receiving relationship is far more enjoyable than taking what has not been given to us. However, as our challenges mount, we tend to do what we have to do to relieve our deepening sense of dissatisfaction, especially when there is the feeling of insecurity and injustice. When feeling that something is not fair, even the best of people are willing to sabotage what they reasonably understand to be right in order to compensate for perceived injustice, even at the expense of those in their lives that they love the most.

Trusting in feelings more than we trust in what we reasonably know and understand makes the most sense is something we are born into, prone to having a preoccupation with fighting off discomfort, whether it be an itch or absolute agony, whether it be physical or emotional. We fall short of our objective to feel better.

We all have been disappointed. Disappointment is the result of unmet and failed expectation. For so many after so much disappointment, they become discouraged. Discouragement is that feeling of being disheartened, opening the door for sorrow. When discouraged for prolonged periods of time can come that feeling of ‘why keep trying?’. Prolonged discouragement can be most distressing into that sinking feeling of depression. Depression is really a loss of incentive and appetite, along with the absence of energy and motivation. Depression becomes especially dangerous when it sinks into the depths of despair. Despair is the complete absence of joy and “the utter loss of hope”, according to Merriam-Webster.

Fueling deepening depression is something commonly referred to as overthinking. When working with adolescent patients who say that overthinking tends to trigger more intense feelings of doubt, fear, worthlessness, and hopelessness, I ask them the following question. Is overthinking primarily a thinking problem or a feeling problem, once again they most often provide the correct response, according to what they know and understand reasonably makes the most sense: “It’s a feeling problem.”

When we consider our weaknesses and things that we do not like about ourselves, we ultimately sabotage what we intellectually and reasonably know to be our strengths, and what we know to be the goodness that is alive within us. So then, in the midst of arduous  circumstances, instead of drawing from our strengths according to what we know from the rational brain, what we trust is what we feel about ourselves, casting doubt and fear as it relates to our response to the challenges we face. We tend to be stuck in the mud of insecurity due to the wounded condition of the emotional brain.

The “emotional brain” is so powerful when allowed to run rogue it does its own thing. We can know and understand the truth regarding our difficulty, yet still it becomes a cognitive crisis because in the heat of the moment we trust our feelings over what we know and reasonably understand, and react impulsively to discomfort before allowing time for rational, reasonable thought.

Whatever It Takes

Once we have made a behavioral choice and act on it, we have to live with that choice. Perhaps for awhile our emotion-driven choices produce favorable outcomes that are pleasurable, or bring relief to our discomfort emanating from dissatisfaction. So long as our emotion-centered behavioral choices are reinforced by pleasure and relief, the rewarded behavior is repeated, again and again. Any self-soothing behavior to ease discomfort and relieve immediate anxiety, may contain within its nature harmful side effects that feed into what is known as chronic anxiety. In other words, impulsive self-soothing behavioral choices motivated by feelings feel good and better enough until they don’t.

Alcohol and drug use can feel satisfying so long as it has its desired effect. However, inherent to its nature, is the body’s growing dependence on the substance. Alcohol and drugs have within their nature the capability of impairing brain function that all at once or over time produces unintended behavioral choices that lead to unfavorable outcomes. It also affects other areas of brain function that because of tolerance (leading to increased use) and withdrawal (in the absence of substances), generate even more physical and emotional discomfort and pain.

The limbic system of the brain is left on its own when the depressant effects of substances suppress the function and process within the prefrontal cortex and central nervous system. It is as though the emotional brain is a grease fire. The “logical” intention of impulsive self-soothing behavior is to throw water on the fire to put it out. But throwing water on a grease fire only accelerates the fire, intensifying the problem. When the process and function of the systems within the thinking areas of the brain are impaired, the emotional brain is left on its own to run wild. The rational brain you might say is the brake pedal—the stop system—while the emotional brain is the accelerator—the go system. When the braking system is impaired, the go system continues to accelerate until their is a crash of some kind.

In addition to substance abuse, are other self-soothing behaviors that can include self-injury (applying external pain to suppress or numb internal pain), a physically and/or verbally aggressive reaction to immediate anxiety (feels better until relationships are damaged, or perhaps their is a legal consequence), impulsive less-than-responsible sexual behavior (takes care of a “need” while invoking emotional harm to self and others), binge eating and purging, spending sprees, shoplifting, and isolation due to mistrust of others and relationships in general.

Self-soothing behavior, typically an emotionally impulsive behavioral response to intense anxiety and depression, is like scratching an itch. You itch when there is dead skin tissue. When you scratch the itch, you kill more skin tissue, intensifying the itch. The more you itch, the more you scratch, until it starts to hurt. Self-soothing behavior to relieve the pain of anxiety and depression, will usually add to and intensify anxiety and depression. Self-soothing behavior can become their own devices of addictive behavior. In the absence of self-soothing methods is that internal groaning to do it, and to repeat it until it becomes its own source for generating disappointment and discouragement, feeding into the growing sense of depression and possibly despair.

It is in despair that someone is desperate for a way out from under the weight of whatever they are carrying, and perhaps capable of doing something rather extreme to get out from under it. It is necessary to recognize every avenue and vehicle considered by some to relieve unbearable and intolerable hardship. Despair is real and we must be aware that when someone could be in a place that they are unable to experience pleasure, delight, or any level of joy, it is possible that the person is in despair. Be willing to help someone who is depressed and in despair to seek help for themselves. If you are wondering about someone, ask.

Patterns and Cycles

We each have our means for trying to manage disappoint, discouragement, and perhaps episodes of depression well before feeling like we are drowning in despair. However, when trusting in feelings over what we know reasonably makes more sense, there is still the temptation to turn to coping strategies that involve at-risk behavior.

There is a pattern or process that leads to having the kind of cognitive thought distortions (covered earlier) that distort the lens in which we see ourselves, the way in which we see are life and the people in our life, and the way we see the world. We can better understand how trauma, for example, leads to poor self-esteem, the inability and unwillingness to trust anyone, and being stuck when it comes to sound decision-making.

The focus is to emphasize the need to sort out all of which, when unpacked, are very clear distinctions between rational beliefs and irrational beliefs. In clinical terms, this is referred to as cognitive dissonance. According to Merriam-Webster, dissonance is defined as, “lack of agreement between the truth and what people want to believe; inconsistency between the beliefs one holds or between one’s actions and one’s beliefs.”

Albert Ellis some 60 years ago wrote about a rational-emotive-behavioral approach to understanding cognition and behavior. Dr. Ellis wrote that life experiences (A) activate (B) beliefs according to how they are interpreted, evoking behavioral patterns that produce outcomes with logical and emotional (C) consequences. Outcomes when feeling favorable (better) reinforce the behavior. While feeling better, you ignore that built within the feel-better behavior (the use of alcohol, drugs, gambling, aggression, sexual acting out, etc.) is the logical potential for harm. When reinforced feel-better behavior is repeated enough, it eventually proves to be harmful, it evoking those logical emotional consequences that produce pain. When the pain hurts badly enough, beliefs are likely to be (D) disputed, prompting behavioral change. Behavioral change, according to healthier beliefs, when reinforced produces (E) effective rational beliefs leading to reinforced healthier behavior that is logically enjoyable.

What this means is that patterns of healthy behavioral change leads to far more favorable and predictable outcomes—experiences—that activate a healthier belief system, according to a trust in rational thought far less dependent on feelings. So easy to read and say; and so much more challenging to live out in the heat of distressing and overwhelming, circumstances.

Deception, Temptation, and Sin

To begin, we are flawed, imperfect people. Did God create us that way? No. God intended for his creation to be perfect; unblemished. The Bible tells us the story of Adam and Eve who gave in to temptation, opposing the moral standard of their creator, and did something they should not have when they ate forbidden fruit from the tree of knowledge of good and evil.

You might think it a bit cruel that God would forbid them of eating from a particular tree as if it was a set up for something that they could not resist. But, imagine for a moment that you have been given the keys, if you will, to your own massive tropical island with about every amenity you desire. You have been told by the island’s owner that you have access to everything, all you can eat, all expenses paid. It is the most beautiful place you have ever hoped for and dreamed about. The views are spectacular! The food and drink is better than anything you have ever tasted. You could not ask for more or better. For some reason known only to the owner of the paradise you are living in, there is a tree on some remote area of the island you are not permitted to trespass into. You are not permitted to eat of the fruit on that tree, despite being immensely satisfied with the everything you have had the privilege of partaking of.

Someone that you had not met before is friendly and talkative and you find yourself enjoying the company of this someone who has befriended you. This someone begins to talk to you about the fruit on the tree the owner of the island had told you is not to be eaten by you. This someone makes the forbidden zone sound so appealing to you, even suggesting you that you will be equal in stature and status on the island if you eat the fruit from that tree. It is as though you are a prince or princess enjoying everything that comes with royalty but you are being led to believe that is not enough unless you are equal to the king or queen.

¹⁵ The Lord God placed the man in the Garden of Eden to tend and watch over it. ¹⁶ But the Lord God warned him, “You may freely eat the fruit of every tree in the garden— ¹⁷ except the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. If you eat its fruit, you are sure to die.”

¹⁸ Then the Lord God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper who is just right for him.”

²⁵ Now the man and his wife were both naked, but they felt no shame.

3 The serpent was the shrewdest of all the wild animals the Lord God had made. One day he asked the woman, “Did God really say you must not eat the fruit from any of the trees in the garden?”

² “Of course we may eat fruit from the trees in the garden,” the woman replied. ³ “It’s only the fruit from the tree in the middle of the garden that we are not allowed to eat. God said, ‘You must not eat it or even touch it; if you do, you will die.’”

⁴ “You won’t die!” the serpent replied to the woman. ⁵ “God knows that your eyes will be opened as soon as you eat it, and you will be like God, knowing both good and evil.”

⁶ The woman was convinced. She saw that the tree was beautiful and its fruit looked delicious, and she wanted the wisdom it would give her. So she took some of the fruit and ate it. Then she gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it, too. ⁷ At that moment their eyes were opened, and they suddenly felt shame at their nakedness. So they sewed fig leaves together to cover themselves.

⁸ When the cool evening breezes were blowing, the man and his wife heard the Lord God walking about in the garden. So they hid from the Lord God among the trees. ⁹ Then the Lord God called to the man, “Where are you?”

¹⁰ He replied, “I heard you walking in the garden, so I hid. I was afraid because I was naked.”

¹¹ “Who told you that you were naked?” the Lord God asked. “Have you eaten from the tree whose fruit I commanded you not to eat?”

¹² The man replied, “It was the woman you gave me who gave me the fruit, and I ate it.”

¹³ Then the Lord God asked the woman, “What have you done?”

“The serpent deceived me,” she replied. “That’s why I ate it.” Genesis 2:15-18, 25, 3:1-13 (NLT)

You might wonder what it means that eating forbidden fruit from some tree that somehow represented knowledge of what God’s standard of morality. Is the eating of the “fruit” from “the tree” of knowledge an allegorical representation of something “Adam and Eve” did independently, in opposition of God’s clear intention of what it means to be dependent on their maker in relationship with him, as a child would be dependent on a parent? Were they so easily deceived by a force sly as a snake making suggestions?

Adam and Eve had it all! They really had it all, entirely content, not needing for anything. They were living in the purity and perfection of a reciprocal giving and receiving relationship with God and with each other. They lived in the beauty of everything in their human experience. It was unlike anything we could possibly imagine. Neither of them were ever sick or had any level of discomfort. They may have eaten but only because God provided them nourishment, not because they were hungry or thirsty or in need of anything physically or emotionally. What they ate and drank was merely for the pleasure of their senses. They had not experienced anxiety, stress, or even fatigue in a manner that caused discomfort. Their experience was a kind of paradise with joy beyond measure.

Then, it is brought to their attention that maybe something is missing. That is how they interpreted the suggestion they had been left in the dark; that their eyes were closed to what they could have (and be) by taking from the one thing, the thing in the midst of all that they did possess and were given control over, that they had been told by their maker to avoid for their own good. Was this a stranger feeding their minds with what would lead to their undoing? Or, had this snake had casual conversations with them in the past? Perhaps, their had already been built into the relationship some rapport and trust.

Whatever it was, the experience of this idea that eating the forbidden fruit somehow activated the belief that Adam and Eve could have more than what they had, and be more than who they were. Once they believed the lie, they acted on the belief and did the one thing that would lead to their decline, decay, and ultimately death. They were deceived by the snake into believing that they had been deceived by God that the knowledge of what it means to be selfish and to feel dissatisfied and inadequate was something they should know.

The belief that they could be more like God and know everything that God knows, and be able to do everything that God can do, brought on the impulse to eat from the tree they were told not to eat from. Once they ate the fruit from the tree they knew the very thing they did not need to know. What they didn’t know was the essence of what made their lives perfect. What they discovered was the knowledge of imperfection and inadequacy.

The real-life consequence was that they became what they discovered. They were now dissatisfied with who and what they were once they betrayed the trust of the one who made them and loved them enough to give them everything they had. The emotional consequence was that they experienced shame of their betrayal. It wrecked the bond they had with their maker. It soiled the relationship. They felt exposed by their shame. They felt naked in the sense that they could no longer hide their infidelity.

It is in fact the beginning of emotion overcoming knowledge, provoked by feelings of desire, envy, and covetousness that lead to deception and temptation. Deception is a feeling, but even more the reality of emotion betraying logic—what one knows and reasonably understands intellectually makes the most sense.

The woman blamed the serpent for deceiving her. The man, knowing intellectually that he defied the specific condition laid out by God (his father, if you will) not to eat fruit from that particular tree, felt the need to protect himself at his wife’s expense, attempted to shift responsibility by blaming her. The man believed it was the woman’s fault that he defied the order of his father.

The Bible calls this fallen condition ‘sin’. Original sin was conceived from self-centered ambition. The first man and woman had it all until feeling like having it all still was not enough. The deception occurred when free will—the ability to choose for oneself—led to emotion that distorted what they valued most. The Apostle James wrote that selfish ambition leads to disorder, which is front and center in the Genesis account, and ultimately every kind of evil since then.

But each one is tempted when he is drawn away by his own desires and enticed. Then, when desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, brings forth death. James 1:14-15 (NKJV)

Deception, Disappointment, and Discontent 

At some point, we lost control because of sin. Sin is the word most often used in the Bible to represent self-centered thinking and behavior. Sin is the byproduct of selfish desire that is perpetually driven to achieve the secure comfort and freedom that comes with feeling satisfied. The problem is that as human beings we are never satisfied. Therefore, our mission, moment to moment, is to experience relief from the insecure discomfort that comes with dissatisfaction.

“What I trace this to is a certain selfishness on my part. I was so obsessed with me and the reasons I might be dissatisfied that I couldn’t focus on other people. The process of growing up is realizing that it’s not about me. When I find myself taking the wrong step, I think it’s because I’m trying to protect myself instead of trying to do God’s will.” —Barack Obama

It is the insecure discomfort of dissatisfaction that produces anxiety. It is anxiety that escalates into the need for relief. How can one be free emotionally as long as there is this intensifying need for relief from inflating discomfort? And so it goes. We behave according to what we feel. We may or may not be sensitive to the needs of others as it relates to our own needs, but all too often our choices not only affect us, but affect others according to what they need. Their choices affect us according to what we need. Talk about a cycle that indeed swells into something vicious!

Why can’t we simply stop this cycle from becoming so vicious? Why don’t we just change when it so obviously makes the most sense?

The emotional brain, when allowed to function independent of rational choice, becomes a rogue system. Emotion left on its own is a raw, highly potent force. Emotion forcefully betrays knowledge, deceitfully persuading the intellect into believing the lie that controls how we manage our circumstances, driving self-centered at-risk behavior. At-risk behavior leads to harm being done. The pattern repeats itself until we are miserable.

¹⁴ So the trouble is not with the law, for it is spiritual and good. The trouble is with me, for I am all too human, a slave to sin. ¹⁵ I don’t really understand myself, for I want to do what is right, but I don’t do it. Instead, I do what I hate. 

¹⁹ I want to do what is good, but I don’t. I don’t want to do what is wrong, but I do it anyway. 

²¹ I have discovered this principle of life—that when I want to do what is right, I inevitably do what is wrong. ²² I love God’s law with all my heart. ²³ But there is another power within me that is at war with my mind. This power makes me a slave to the sin that is still within me. ²⁴ Oh, what a miserable person I am! Who will free me from this life that is dominated by sin and death? ²⁵ Thank God! The answer is in Jesus Christ our Lord. So you see how it is: In my mind I really want to obey God, but because of my sinful nature I am a slave to sin. Romans 7:14-15, 19, 21-25 (NLT)

“What a miserable person I am! Who will free from this life dominated by discomfort, struggle, and pain?”

So long as we struggle so desperately to experience freedom from discomfort, we cannot on our own live according to the standards of what most would consider to be human decency. If we cannot on our own live up to our own standards as a civil society, how can we possibly live up to the moral standard of the Divine; the holiness of God? We desperately need for God to be merciful. We need mercy having been overwhelmed and overcome by circumstances that involve loss and grief.

“I have hit rock bottom. Where do I go from here? My life feels empty from the inside out.”

Well… there is always therapy, and perhaps medication to treat anxiety and depression. There may be support groups. All of that is good when it helps to process intense adverse experiences, including trauma.

Is it enough? What might it take to advance forward from merely surviving each day? What does it take to heal from the inside out? What will it take to experience joy again?

Transformative Change

The real issue at hand is all about transformative change from the inside out. How is that to experienced in real life, in real time?

Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship. Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will. Romans 12:1-2 (NIV)

What does this passage written from New Testament of the Bible mean in the most practical way?

Well, let’s unpack what it is more than suggesting. Let’s start with, “In view of God’s mercy.” How was God merciful? Why do we need for God to have mercy on us?

What if it takes a relationship with God? To have access to God is to know Jesus. Why Jesus?

Jesus is the Christ, which means, “messiah,” “the manifestation of God”. The New Testament from the Bible was originally translated in the Greek language. The Greek translation for Christ means, “the anointed one… supremely empowered by the Holy Spirit to accomplish all of the divine plan.” What is the divine plan?

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.” John 3:16-17 (ESV)

For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. Ephesians 2:8-9 (ESV)

Who is Jesus?

Jesus is our desperately needed Savior, which means from the original Greek text, “one who delivers or rescues from peril.” The Latin translation for ‘savior’ means, “to make safe, secure,” and the Old English means to, “cure; save; make whole, sound, and well.”

In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage;  rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man,    he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death—even death on a cross! Philippians 2:5-8 (NIV)

Jesus, the manifestation of God, was chosen to leave his divine position as God, to be born as a human being, to fully participate in the human condition, experiencing everything good and bad that comes with being human. It is written that Jesus was exposed to weakness, which by nature is a human flaw that made Jesus vulnerable—to everything, requiring Jesus to trust and depend on God to be able to resist temptation. Jesus had to be without sin in order to die on the cross as the sacrifice for our sin so that we would be redeemed, which translated from the Greek text, means “to be released from the burden of sin,” since Jesus paid the price for the sin of all mankind.

“I can do nothing on my own. I judge as God tells me. Therefore, my judgment is just, because I carry out the will of the one who sent me, not my own will.” John 5:30 (NLT)

Check this out!

Jesus himself was the pioneer for identifying and modeling the first three steps of recovery (modified from the 12 Steps):

A) Jesus admitted what he powerless to do on his own to be restored from the brokenness of the human condition.

B) Jesus believed that only God (his father) had the power to restore him so long as Jesus trusted God for every choice he would make.

C) Jesus committed his will—every decision—over to the will and care of God, to be restored into everything God intended so that Jesus would do what he did, and be who he is for you and for me today.

Jesus himself came to utterly depend on God (his Father) as small children depend on their fathers. Jesus, through the spoken word, would admit his need for God to guide his every decision. Jesus made his choices according to what knew to believe in the entirety of his thought process before acting on any and all choices. His behavior was directed by God as Jesus would commit his will over to the will of God in everything he chose to do.

Out of necessity, Jesus committed the cognitive-behavioral process of who we was as a human being captive to the will and purpose of God. Not because of some religious obligation, or because it was required of him as the Son of God, but because it was in fact the only way he would prevail in the human experience.

Why do we need to be in relationship with Jesus, specifically? Why Jesus?

Therefore since we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast to our confession. For we do not have a high priest incapable of sympathizing with our weaknesses, but one who has been tempted in every way just as we are, yet without sin. Therefore let us confidently approach the throne of grace to receive mercy and find grace whenever we need help. Hebrews 4:14-16 (NET)

The role of the high priest during the age that Jesus was on the earth in Israel was to facilitate the temple’s system and process of sacrifice. The high priest at that time had access to the literal presence of within what was called The Holy of Holies—meaning “the dwelling place of God”—one time each year. Jesus is the Great High Priest since he embodies the presence of God. Once we enter into relationship with Jesus, specifically, the bible tells us that our bodies become the temple—the dwelling place—of God in the person of Jesus, dwelling spiritually within all who by faith believe this; trusting in what we believe.

This is huge! It is in relationship with Jesus that we have access to God. Jesus passed through the heavens many times. The most important is when Jesus vacated his divine standing as God to be born on the earth. The sole purpose of this was to be the sacrifice for all sin; the sin of everyone. All of it! Having done so, we have been redeemed into relationship with God in the person of Jesus Christ. Jesus passed through the heavens again, this time having ascended once again be at the right hand of the Father, exalted into all of his divine nature as God. Jesus, fully man and fully God, dwells spiritually within the very fiber of who you and I are, fully alive in relationship with him.

It is in spiritual relationship with Jesus by faith that we can have complete confidence—boldness!—to approach the throne of grace to receive mercy and favor with God whenever we need help. Jesus said that as a man he depended on God for everything, all the time. So, I suppose we need to always be before the throne of grace. Since, in relationship with Jesus he lives within our person dwelling within us, we must be mindful of the presence of Christ dwelling within us every moment with every breath.

So we have stopped evaluating others from a human point of view. At one time we thought of Christ merely from a human point of view. How differently we know him now!  This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun! 2 Corinthians 5:17 (NLT)

Revelation of Faith Experiences

What I am going to share with you are experiences I have shared with real people in their moment of desperate need.

If you have accepted that there must be a creative force in the universe that made life from nothing with intention and purpose, then it is certainly reasonable that God can resurrect his son from the dead. Once you sensibly recognize God as creator, having a connection with what HE created, then anything and everything is possible after that. God who made life from scratch can surely resurrect it from from the dead. Why not? Of course he can!

What else can be resurrected when God is the force to restore and sustain order within and throughout the lives of the people he made? How might God, through Jesus, affect human experiences?

Encounters with Jesus Changes Lives

Billions of people have testified that their lives have been changed by the presence of God, most specifically, Jesus Christ. This is only possible if Jesus is alive. Some have been changed so radically by the love of Jesus that they have turned their lives over to him in surrender. They are too often ridden off by unbelievers as deniers of objectivity in the “real world”. They are often thought of as religious fools, not as someone experiencing relationship with God. There is a stark contrast between religion and relationship. We, who have encountered Jesus by faith, cannot comprehend how anyone would ever not want what we know to be authentic. To those who have not encountered God in relationship with Jesus, we are nothing more than religious fools.

^14-16 In the Messiah, in Christ, God leads us from place to place in one perpetual victory parade. Through us, he brings knowledge of Christ. Everywhere we go, people breathe in the exquisite fragrance. Because of Christ, we give off a sweet scent rising to God, which is recognized by those on the way of salvation—an aroma redolent with life. But those on the way to destruction treat us more like the stench from a rotting corpse.

^16-17 This is a terrific responsibility. Is anyone competent to take it on? No—but at least we don’t take God’s Word, water it down, and then take it to the streets to sell it cheap. We stand in Christ’s presence when we speak; God looks us in the face. We get what we say straight from God and say it as honestly as we can. 2 Corinthians 2:14-17 (The MESSAGE translation)

As someone who has realized the substance of the hope within me, and experienced the evidence of my faith, I seek to spread the fragrance of life while working in secular settings. Why at work? Because my professional life is working therapeutically with vulnerable, broken individuals in need of an encounter with God. Professionally speaking, to leverage one’s vulnerability in a therapeutic setting is considered exploitation. Truth be told, it is precisely the opportunity to speak truth and life into someone’s broken existence; particularly when there are some that are so shattered in their despair that they wish to terminate their existence.

I take the time, for all who will allow it, to explore with them the God who is the originator and catalyst of all living things, and of Jesus, who sacrificed everything to provide a way into relationship with God. It’s not something required of me in my professional duties, it is what I have the privilege to do to truly be a steward of God’s calling on my life, hoping to give individuals access to an encounter with God that can change the course of their lives.

I present reasonably logical explanations as to why it makes sense to believe that God is real, and that Jesus is alive, loves them, and is able, willing, and desiring to deliver them, heal them, and restore them from empty vessels into the solemn experience of wholeness. I hope to to help people to, not just feel hopeful, but to be hopeful in what they can know with absolute certainty is truth about their life being better.

The following are a few true-life stories of close encounters with the living Christ. I want to encourage you to take your time and allow yourself to go deep enough into these story to feel them, as if you can relate emotionally to what these people experienced having encountered the literal presence of Jesus.

At one time we thought of Christ merely from a human point of view. How differently we know him now! This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun! 2 Corinthians 5:16-17 (NLT)

(I have changed the names of the people involved, but these are real experiences shared with these individuals. Images associated with individuals in these stories are from Google Images, and are not pictures of clients and patients.)

Dora

While responding to an emergency code to the psychiatric unit comprised of adults, I had an opportunity to talk to someone who told me she did not believe in God but had been thinking about some things. I had been called up from the adolescent unit where I was working to the adult unit because its staff was dealing with a violent patient. I was monitoring the halls checking on patients on the floor.

I tapped on a woman’s door and opened the door to check on her. Laying under the covers in her bed, she looked up barely and asked quietly, “Are you a pastor?”

I told her that I was a counselor called up to the floor temporarily to help out. I asked her, “Why do you ask?” inquiring what she might be wanting to talk to a pastor about.

I asked her why she was in the hospital, and like most patients in behavioral health, she was battling depression and intense thoughts of suicide. She had come to America from a foreign country an ocean or two away hoping to make a better life for her children. It had not gone well for so long until she felt like giving up; and worse, feeling as though her two children were better off without her.

Beyond depression, Dora was at a place of despair. I asked her what she believed about God and spirituality. That is when she spoke of not believing that God exists, and not having had thought much about it. But lately, she has been feeling very depressed, lonely, and seriously contemplating suicide. This had led to her being a little curious about something like God being out there. How could she know?

One of the things I usually start with is with this question, assuming that something had to always exist: “If God didn’t always exist, what did?” Dora expressed some appreciation for the question. We talked for a bit about how life must have originated from something or someone alive in order to produce life. I told her that I was attempting to make a logical, reasonable case for the reality of God. Dora responded that it made sense that it would take something or someone alive to to produce new life. She also expressed agreement that if God can produce human life from dust, or essentially nothing, than anything and everything after that from God is logically and reasonable possible. It made sense to her. If only it were true.

So then, we talked about the historical facts surrounding the life death of Jesus; and that even the empty tomb is considered to be historical fact. It’s not something really up for debate. Not long before that, I had mentioned that I am an ordained minister, but not in the role of pastor, but as a counselor getting to speak with her. Dora was then able to agree that if God could make life out of nothing than it was possible that God could resurrect Jesus from the dead, even after three days. On an intellectual level this made sense to her.

So far, these were just words, but they helped me to build some rapport with Dora. I could sense that she might trust me to share a few stories with her. I needed to attract her to wanting relationship with God before hoping to compel Dora to want something she had no idea until then was real. She wouldn’t be going anywhere for a bit so I asked if I could share these stories with her. She nodded that I could, so I did. Keep in mind, that I am sharing these stories with Dora. Maybe, just maybe, she will find some hope in hearing them, assuming she trusts me enough to be telling her the truth. I began with the real-life story of Jo and Liv.

Jo

I was counseling a high graduate still under the cloud of passive suicidal ideation (thoughts and feelings with no plan) while able to contract for safety as she prepared for discharge from the hospital. While we were talking, there was another adolescent patient struggling with symptoms that evoked a profanity-laced psychotic rant from her room that could be heard throughout the adolescent psychiatric ward, who I will refer to as Liv. Her rant included threats of violence against whoever it was that had violated her in the past.

I asked Jo before me how suicide would be of benefit to her. What would she have to gain? She responded by telling me she would finally be free. I asked Jo what she would be free from. (Keep in mind that as we are having this discussion, the Liv’s psychotic rant in the other room continued and seemed to be escalating.)

Jo suggested to me things she would be free from, including intense anxiety, fear (which she understood to be irrational but her sense of what is reasonable did not change what she was feeling), and a prevailing sense of hopeless dread she would experience for extended periods of time. She would tell you that her life was good and that she was relatively happy with healthy self-esteem. This led to Jo suspecting that her neurochemical pathways were amiss, which she found quite troubling; though she was doing much better than she had been.

I asked Jo how she knew she would be free. In the background continued to be the Liv ranting on and on. I asked Jo how she’d be free. “I’d be dead.” She was inferring that being dead would free her of whatever it was in her brain that aroused in her these intrusive suicidal thoughts that at times Jo feared she might act on.

So I had to ask, “What would happen to you if you died?” She told me with a degree of certainty that she would be in heaven. Even though there is nothing in the bible to suggest that God’s mercy does not extend to the mentally ill or someone resorting to such an extreme measure to escape… , I was unwilling to allow her to feel secure about heaven via suicide. I asked her how she knew, or even could know, that she destined for heaven by route of suicide. I wanted Jo to consider what assurance she had about that. “What is heaven? “How did you, or could you, know that heaven is real? What do you know or believe about that? This teenage graduate stumbled and bumbled around these questions, perhaps even doubting that heaven was in play for her.

In the other room, Liv suddenly stopped what had been an evil-sounding half-hour long blusterous onslaught of rage. She stopped while Jo struggled to respond to my questions. Suddenly and oh so clearly, the Liv stated matter-of-factly, “I believe in Jesus. I believe in God.” That is all she said. Then, silence for the next couple of minutes.

Jo and I looked directly at one another as those words were spoken. Still silence from the other room. I asked if what Liv just said answered my questions. As tears began to fill her eyes, Jo told me it did. She then told me that she had wondered what it would be like to ever hear from God, or receive some kind of message or sign from God. It was Jo’s assurance; her guarantee that her faith destined her for heaven. I shared with her the following scripture passage:

O Lord, what are human beings that you should notice them,
mere mortals that you should think about them? Psalm 144:3 (NLT)

I informed Jo that the same God who created the universe and is the maker of life, just noticed her in the most tangible way. Jesus made his presence known as he used the voice of a very sick girl to speak to her. Tears were now leaking out of both eyes making their way down her cheeks. At this point, Liv had returned to those psychotic ramblings, as vicious in its content as at any time before.

My next challenge was to direct Jo toward realizing that it is her faith that will continue to make her well. Jo needed the assurance that Jesus intends for her to realize her dreams. One dream is to pursue the thing that has been a threat to her peace of mind, evoking thoughts of suicide. To realize her dream to become a veterinarian, she would have to leave the security of home and family and close friendships to attend college for some eight years.

So, we talked about purpose for her life. We were able to touch on some things of significance that had deep meaning for her. The thought of being a healing agent that would bring joy to pet owners brought her joy. Though tears continued to fill her eyes, they were tears of joy. I asked Jo if I could tell her story to others in the future. She responded, “Tell everyone.”

Jo called the hospital several months later and gave me a report of how well she was doing. From that experience, she was motivated to return to church, and had her entire family back in church. She wasn’t returning to church out of some sense of religious obligation, she wanted to be in God’s house of worship and prayer, as though it was the least she could do to express her gratitude.

What about Liv? Are you curious about her? She would get better with medication and therapy. I got to tell Liv the amazing story of how Jesus showed up when she was at her weakest point, to use her voice to speak his words of hope to Jo, who had been discharged from the hospital by the time Liv was herself again. Tears filled her eyes. A nurse approached her to ask if she was okay. Liv told the nurse that those were happy tears. Liv asked me if I would write down the story for her since she too was discharging the next day. She asked a female peer on the unit to read it to her. They both cried tears of joy, recognizing how remarkable it was that Jesus spoke through her help someone else at her most vulnerable. She knew that it was Jesus who had lifted her up through deliverance and healing.

To people who have experienced Jesus Christ in the most personal of ways specific to them, there is no question or doubt of his resurrection. They do not need to read something like this to be confident that Jesus arose from the dead and is alive today. It is not something they need to come to believe. It is something they have come to know by their very specific encounter with Jesus Christ. To them, the experience is a matter of fact—permanence—never to be taken from them.

Dell

I also shared with Dora the story of an alcoholic in treatment who did not believe anything about Jesus because he had never been told, never been to church or anything (not even as a child), and didn’t know; completely unaware.

When I met Dell around 2007, I performed my assessment to learn that he was consuming so much alcohol after work that he was likely driving into work the next morning more than two times the legal limit, which is .08 blood alcohol content in Illinois. Ethically, I should have referred Dell to inpatient care until both he and his new wife (second marriage) “begged” me to allow him into my intensive outpatient program. Dell did not want to miss up to four weeks of work, and his wife was hoping he would be able to work with me, hoping that I would introduce Dell to faith in God.

I admitted Dell into my outpatient into my program under the condition that if he used alcohol even one time, I had an ethical and moral responsibility to refer him to a more appropriate level of care, which would be a 28-day inpatient stay before he could rejoin my outpatient program. So, Dell did a five-day detox at a local hospital prior to joining my faith (Christ)-centered program, not knowing much of anything about spirituality or faith.

Dell said he was not opposed to faith, but felt he was never in need of it. I shared with Dell much of what I already wrote about regarding my conversation with Dora about God and Jesus, and the likelihood of Christ’s resurrection from a historical context. Dell agreed that if God always existed and could accept God as his creator, then God raising Jesus from the dead was reasonable, from a logical point of view, whether or not it is the foundation and inspiration for faith.

The notion of prayer was a bit challenging, since Dell had never even considered prayer before. When suggesting that prayer be something he does with his voice, I acknowledged that he may feel as though he is talking to himself. To Dell, praying to Jesus may as well have been praying to Santa Claus; a fable he considered believable as a child but not something he would consider believing as a grown up.

Dell shared with me before a group therapy session that the night before, his urge to drink, “On a scale of 10 was a 30.”

As Dell sat in a gas station parking lot about to buy cigarettes and beer (lots of beer), knowing that it would likely cost him his second marriage, and keep him from relationship from his estranged pre-adolescent daughter from his first marriage, he talked to this Jesus  person, who he had just heard about. He said out loud (“I was praying to the God of Steve”), “Jesus, I don’t know if you’re real if you are then I need your help.” Dell said he felt something go through him head to toe, as if he’d been washed. It was as though Santa Claus, metaphorically speaking, had landed on his roof. He said his urge to drink, “Went from 30 to like, two.” He left the gas station and went home. He didn’t even buy cigarettes.

When Dell returned for the next treatment session and told me this story, he wanted it all: get his hands on a Bible, find a church, faith-centered meetings, and more… all of it!

It was not perfect for Dell. After following up with him for several months, he was doing well. He expressed a great deal of positivity and gratitude for where he was at in his recovery into sobriety in his relationship with Jesus. It included attending meeting with like-minded men who also encouraged him in his faith.

Over an extended period of time, Dell stopped taking or returning my calls after I had left messages. Then one day, almost a year later, I received permission to do a well-being check at his home around 9:00 in the evening after a group therapy session. Dell answered the door and looked great. Fantastic! Not what I anticipated at all. I did not expect him to answer the door, and if he did, I expected he would be a mess, having relapsed I suspected. I asked why he had not returned my calls.

“Steve, I relapsed for a few months.” Dell had discontinued the discipline of recovery. Instead of building a supportive sober recovery network, he had isolated. I did not ask questions about his wife or the daughter God had afforded him to rebuild relationship with. He then told me about what he did to back into recovery in just the last couple of weeks. I had not called during that time.

I asked Dell if he had another one of those encounters. He had not. “Steve, I never stopped believing, I didn’t need that.” he said. “I just got lazy. I stopped doing what I needed to do and fell back into bad habits.” That is what Dell did. Just like every other person of faith. Then, he returned to meetings, attended church, read his bible, and prayed. He had also returned to certain accountability he had set up.

The more I shared about others facing incredible adversities with Dora, and how they tapped into relationship Jesus experienced restoration in their lives and circumstances, the more her face seemed to light up. She was sitting up in her bed. There was definitely an improvement to her countenance as I continued. One more story, and it was important.

Roy

I am going to share one more story that I believe is experiential testimony that Jesus is alive and involved today. This time it involves a man well into his 40s and his 11-year-old niece. The man identified here was receiving treatment for a DUI to satisfy a court ruling. He was admitted to my faith-based intensive outpatient alcohol and drug treatment program at a Christian counseling agency where I took prayer requests at the outset of our treatment groups. He told us he had grown up Catholic but hadn’t had even a thought about it since he was a teenager.

At the end of his second week in the program, this man asked for prayer for his 11-year-old niece who was dying in the hospital due to multiple organ failure and hooked up to all kinds of machines. The man admitted he had not prayed in a long, long time and that this was as good a day as any to revisit his religious beliefs from the past. I led the treatment group in praying for his niece. I would always ask for updates when praying for someone in the name of Jesus.

We prayed for the man’s niece at the end of a treatment week leading into the weekend. This is where it gets tough for me. I want so badly for Jesus to show up and do something special. But that’s on Him. I obviously have no control over that. Honestly, I expected my client to come to group the next week with tragic news.

This man spent much of the weekend at the hospital supporting his niece, hoping for her recovery. He returned the next week and couldn’t wait to report back with an update concerning his niece. He shared with the group that she was making tremendous progress with a prognosis for  full recovery. He told us that the medical team was totally mystified as to the reversal of what was happening in the young girl’s body. My client reported later in the week that his niece was getting better and was no longer hooked up to anything. The doctors and specialists were now keeping her under observation until they felt she was safe to return home. My client told us at the beginning of the next week that his niece was home.

My client told the group that his mother had been praying for weeks for her granddaughter’s healing but that Jesus did not answer her prayer until I prayed for his niece. It was imperative that I corrected him about that. I made certain to make it known to this man that God indeed answered his mother’s prayer. It was the timing that needing clarification. I told him that his mother prayed for her granddaughter for weeks but in all likelihood had been praying for her son for decades that he would return home to the faith he had grown up believing in. This man told his peers in group that he believed without any doubt that Jesus healed his niece, which restored his faith.

Resurrection can mean a lot of things. In this case, the same Jesus that was resurrected from the dead, resurrected the failing organs of a dying 11-year-old girl, while resurrecting the faith of her 40-something-year-old uncle. It’s an awesome story! I love talking about this stuff and share these stories with anyone willing to consider that there is someone who is the originator of life who can and will resurrect lives that are withering and dying.

Something that must be acknowledged here is that each occasion when I have told this story, and so many others saying they do not believe in God, of Ryan’s niece, I ask them, “Who else was Roy’s mother praying for (in addition to her granddaughter)?” The response every single time is, “Him.” Even those who discount having faith in God respond that Roy’s mother was also praying for him. Why? How would they even know to say “him” unless there is something they already understood on some level is believable? Dora said, “Him.” I asked her how she knew that unless something in her already on some level believed? To say that it affected her emotionally and psychologically is an understatement. To say that it affected her—changed her—spiritually would be most adequate.

Dora Again

I went on to speak to Dora about how, if God could resurrect Jesus from death into life, then maybe he could do the same for her; that God could resurrect this woman’s hopelessness into hope; that God could take this woman from her dread into feeling confident that her life has the potential for joy and purpose. By then, she was sitting up and smiling, talking about her life with a much more positive outlook. This happened over a period of 40 minutes or so, but changed the trajectory her life.

We also talked about what it means to talk to God, creator and ruler of the universe, who noticed her, and sent someone responding to an emergency code to go up two floors to her unit to visit with her while in incredible distress concerning her life. Dora was smiling with that lilt in her voice as she spoke. I knew that she believed. She told me that she would give prayer a try, but not in a dismissive way. I knew that she meant it.

Since I did not typically work on the adult unit where she was, I told Dora that if I did not get to see her again, that I would see her in heaven someday. It is a bit like Jesus knowing that the criminal on the cross to his left was reborn into faith when he said to Jesus all of two words, “Remember me,” I knew with certainty that Dora believed.

Before, leaving her doorway, she said this to me, “Steve, there is something I have told you yet. Literally, just before you tapped on my door, I thought to myself, ‘If there is a God, he will bring someone to talk to me.’ It was just at that moment that you tapped and opened my door.” Then Dora asked me, “Are you a pastor?”

Already phenomenally blessed by that experience with Dora, due to being overstaffed on the adolescent unit I typically work with, I was assigned to the adult unit a couple of days later. Dora was in the day room and attending therapy groups. We had opportunities to talk during the morning part of my shift. She was like this brand new person having encountered Jesus for herself. Brand new to the idea of faith, now born into it, I had a little bit more opportunity to share with her next steps. Jump online and buy a Bible (New Living Translation, preferably) and suggested a church near where she lives.

Dora was back in her own clothes as she prepared to be discharged by early afternoon. It had been just two days since she had been buried under hospital blankets in her bed for some 36 hours, refusing meals, still not answering questions from nurses, except for a grunt now and then, and one time telling the doctor she wanted to die. People reading this that work in a psychiatric setting understand how that’s a quick turn around time to be discharged. There is no doubt in my mind that Dora’s life had been, Transformed by the renewing of her mind,” having believed by faith, “In view of God’s mercy.”

Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship. Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will. Romans 12:1-2 (NIV)

Did this happen just as I said it did? Or, am I making it up? Perhaps I have embellished the facts. Truth be told, it was much more than what I have been able to convey with mere words. It was one of dozens of these kinds of situations that the resurrected Jesus, very much alive today, showed up and did something very special for someone. It was a very special for me as well to experience someone else’s encounter.

Llesenia

I did not share this God encounter with Dora because it had not happened yet. I did share the full compliment of those stories above with Llesenia. Her life would be changed forever. I originally wasn’t going to share this, having already shared the other stories, but this one is especially important to me because Llesenia is especially important to me. Beyond developing strong rapport with her would develop into something that was akin to a bond; a kind of a paternal connection.

Llesenia, some six weeks shy of her 16th birthday, was inpatient at the hospital twice over about an eight-week period. I tried to maintain what is known as professional (and emotional) distance from her, but admit it became increasingly difficult. She laughed at my jokes; we both laughed quite a bit during our conversations. She had a similar sense of humor and dished out one-liners that were clever and funny. While I have empathy and compassion for all of my clients and patients, I will admit that I had a grown particularly fond of Llesenia.

Llesenia had experienced something referred to as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) psychosis. When I first really paid attention to Llesenia specifically, other than in group therapy settings, was when she experienced a hallucination and began to sob profusely in front of a dozen of her peers. I was sitting a few feet away and asked Llesenia what was happening. She said that she had seen a man and an eight-year-old girl. Llesenia told me that the man she understood to be evil, and that the young girl was her. I was able to reason with Llesenia that it was not possible that the man, nor the girl, could possibly be at the hospital. She understood that to be the case but still quite frightened to see what she saw. It was this lucid hallucination that led to feeling suicidal, which resulted in being admitted inpatient.

When people hallucinate like that, what they experience appears remarkably real. If you have not experienced anything like it, think of a lucid dream so real that there is no way you were dreaming. Everything was three-dimensional in vivid detail all around you. The emotion within the experience is raw as though everything matters. It is not a dream, as far as you’re concerned in the moment. It can’t be! And then, your alarm goes off, you awaken, and it is time to get out of bed. Either you are happy to be awake because the dream was quite unpleasant, or you are disappointed because the dream was so favorable. Imagine all of that happening while you are conscious. That is similar to how it is when someone experiences a hallucination.

I was able to pull Llesenia aside, and asked her what had happened. When Llesenia was eight years old, she had a trauma experience that she had buried deep down for some six years before it resurfaced as post-traumatic stress. Everything that happened during her experience, until the age of 14, had become a repressed memory until she first hallucinated and went to a hospital. Llesenia reported having suicidal thoughts, and would rather die than live with the experience of reliving again and again what had occurred six years ago.

Llesenia struggled with self-esteem issues that are borne from trauma. There were times she could not imagine being happy. But, she girl enjoyed humorous exchanges and laughing. I encouraged her to soak that in as an opportunity to experience joy in the midst of what often felt like dread.

Llesenia received the treatment she needed, a combination of effective medication and therapy, and began to get better. She still hallucinated some but understood not to be so threatened by them. One of the things she learned was to understand that the scars from her trauma experience are healed wounds. That is what scars are… healed wounds. She also learned that she has wounds from her trauma and other experiences growing up that are still healing.

Llesenia learned not to settle when it comes to relationships and was committed to abstaining from toxicity in her life, understanding fully what that means for her. She had no problem articulating the importance of behavioral change for her life, not because she was told to, but because she understood certain changes about her decisions to be best for her.

During follow-up care, I gave Llesenia a New Living Translation Bible and helped teach her how to read it. She applied prayer to her therapeutic endeavors once leaving the clinical setting of the hospital. Being secure in her relationship with God helped, and I believe still helps her, to overcome her insecurities. She returned to being involved in her local church.

There is another very important piece to Llesenia’s story I have not shared. At a time when her hallucinations were at bay for the most part, she told me a few months later via video chats, that she was experiencing a presence behind her, just to her right. It was a new experience. I asked her if she found it comforting or if she feared it. She told me she was very frightened by it. She was fairly certain it was another form of attack to her mental well being.

I asked Llesenia in the chat to grab her bible, which she did. I asked her to turn to the book of Hebrews, chapter 1, verse 14. I asked her to read it out loud.

Therefore, angels are only servants—spirits sent to care for people who will inherit salvation. Hebrews 1:14 (NLT)

I knew I was taking a risk here but believed I was led by God to bring this to her attention. After a very brief description of this verse, Llesenia put her face into her hands and burst into tears, which I admit frightened me a bit. I asked her what was wrong.

Llesenia raised her face back to where I could see her. With tears of joy still flowing, SHE GLOWED!!

Llesenia told me that as she read that verse aloud and as we discussed it, the presence that she now understood to be God’s presence (maybe an angel) to care for her and protect her, had put his hand tenderly on her right shoulder, up against the crook of her neck. Llesenia had literally been touched by God, or a ministering angel, for several minutes. There was no doubt!

By now, she knew that the angel represented the presence of Jesus in a way she had never experienced before. She had no fear. This was not a hallucination or delusion. Llesenia encountered the presence of heaven—an angel, the Holy Spirit, I don’t know for sure—but is was Jesus reassuring her that she was loved beyond anything she had ever known.

Llesenia had heard all of the stories (above) with amazement. All I said to her while she was still joyfully tearful, was that she now has her own story to share.

Though Llesenia’s mother had shared with me in a note that I was an angel sent by God into her daughter’s life, Jesus did so much more. Llesenia encountered God for herself in way that most of us will ever experience on this side of heaven. This was remarkably special. Llesenia’s faith has made her well. She is not without struggle, but will always be comforted by the presence of God who gives her strength.

Restoration

There is a progression from who, what, and where we were, to who, what, and where we are in relationship with Jesus Christ. Our perspective has changed with Jesus dwelling within our very person spiritually—our bodies being the temple where the Spirit of God lives as we now function in relationship with Jesus. This entire essay speaks to the problem of trusting our feelings rather than filtering our feelings through what we know and understand reasonably makes the most sense.

⁴ Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice. ⁵ Let your reasonableness be known to everyone. The Lord is at hand (involved, engaged); ⁶ do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. ⁷ And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Philippians 4:4-7 (ESV)

The problem with trusting the feelings that shape our human point of view is that our thought life is overwhelmed and overrun by feelings, betraying knowledge and reason. Believing cognitive distortions alter are core values and twist our beliefs until they give way to distortions and giving in to temptation that drives impulsive behavior.

The Scripture from Philippians chapter 4 was written by the apostle Paul from a prison in Rome where he could have and should have feared for his life was considered a threat by government leaders for persuading lots of people to believe what I am writing to you right here. Apostle Paul wrote throughout the New Testament that you need not be dependent on distorted human thinking, stuck in the fear of trusting feelings. The purpose of this teaching is to launch you into a trajectory towards freedom, trusting that God will heal you and restore you into who and what he created you to be… FREE!

The key to being free from anxiety, stress, disappointment, discouragement, depression, shame, and fear is… get ready for it… JOY! Consider the following synonym for joy: triumph. To triumph is to win. Triumph is about prevailing in a great conquest. It is in the authentic reality of prevailing through adversity that one triumphs and experiences the deepest understanding of joy. It is in this joy that is alive from within. It is this joy that produces healing and restoration. It is this joy that cuts through hardship and pierces through pain.

Not that I was ever in need, for I have learned how to be content with whatever I have. I know how to live on almost nothing or with everything. I have learned the secret of living in every situation, whether it is with a full stomach or empty, with plenty or little. For I can do everything through Christ, who gives me strength. Philippians 4:11-13 (NLT)

Understanding who you are in relationship with Jesus, embodying his presence, that Apostle Paul insists that we rejoice in this reality that is to be experienced. It is in our rejoicing that we are absolutely capable of replacing anxiety with peace as we pray to God alive within us. As we pray and communicate with our Savior, Jesus Christ, approaching him with absolute confidence and boldness, that the transcendent peace of God guards our hearts and minds (both related to our cognitive makeup). This joy is the game changer! It changes everything!

Application

The practical application in all of this begins with confession, acknowledgment, and gratitude. We admit and confess that we are flawed by the sin that has not only resulted in being selfish to a fault, but has corrupted our intentions, regardless of how we got there by way of what we have experienced over the course of our lives. We acknowledge our belief that God, in the person of Jesus, is the only one anywhere who can rescue us and liberate us from the grief and the pain of both what we have endured, and the harm we have caused due to our sinful condition. We express gratitude for what Jesus did by way of his sacrifice to cover the sin against us and that which we have done.

We then live in relationship with Jesus, according to what we believe about him, empowered by Jesus living within us as his temple—his dwelling place. Remarkable! We live our lives with confidence that God has our backs, both defending us from opposition and adversity, and advancing us forward to prevail in the face of our daily challenges.

We need not fear. Of course, we will face challenges and problems that are threatening and scary. Let’s not be naïve about that. However, when faith is alive within us, there is a peace—an assurance—that is living and active. It’s awesome! Even in the midst of the greatest threat and risk of any challenge, there is this foundation of joy that pierces through the hardship in a way that cannot really be explained. It is the peace that transcends understanding and description, yet to our minds as people of faith, it is reasonable, making complete sense.

The other element of this is the relationships we have with everyone else of like-minded faith. It brings strangers in the world together because of this shared assurance. There is instant rapport; a sense of acceptance and belonging that reaches deeper into our beings than what is typical. When in a larger group of like-minded people of faith, there is a deeply felt sense of community; like family in a way. The Bible refers to this as the family of God since we are related, if you will, as brothers and sisters, and as peculiar as it may sound, we share a kind of familial love for one another. Also, quite remarkable.

We are motivated to pray for each other, perhaps serve one another; not out of a sense of duty and obligation, but from a place of connection. The way we live together in faith is not where it stops. We are motivated to be inclusive. Compelled by an attitude that is loving, we want to extend the blessing to others. We want others to know and experience what we know by our experience. Once you have the pathway to healing, deliverance, mercy, treasure (provision), inner peace and joy, you find yourself motivated, even compelled, to help those who appear lost to get on the right road to experience all that you have experienced and know by faith will continue to experience.

When troubles of any kind come your way, consider it an opportunity for great joy. For you know that when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow. So let it grow, for when your endurance is fully developed, you will be perfect and complete, needing nothing. If you need wisdom, ask our generous God, and he will give it to you. James 1:2-5 (NLT)

People in relationship with Jesus absolutely know that faith is hope, hope is faith, and it is that truth that presents itself as strength during the times of greatest difficulty and challenge. There is a peace and genuine assurance that comes in knowing that worst thing that can happen is heaven. While there is no doubt immense pain and grief during times of tragedy and loss, there is the knowing that life is eternal, and that in that eternity is freedom that is pure and love that perfect; a permanent state to living that is whole. In that place of freedom and perfection is relationship literally in the presence of God in the person of Jesus Christ.

Therefore, since we have been made right in God’s sight by faith, we have peace with God because of what Jesus Christ our Lord has done for us. Because of our faith, Christ has brought us into this place of undeserved privilege where we now stand, and we confidently and joyfully look forward to sharing God’s glory. We can rejoice, too, when we run into problems and trials, for we know that they help us develop endurance. And endurance develops strength of character, and character strengthens our confident hope of salvation. And this hope will not lead to disappointment. For we know how dearly God loves us, because he has given us the Holy Spirit to fill our hearts with his love. When we were utterly helpless, Christ came at just the right time and died for us sinners. Romans 5:1-6 (NLT)

To those that do not believe this, these are words of folly and deception. But, ANYONE reading these words, if they are entirely honest with themselves, want these words to be true. If guaranteed through some kind of proof or evidence that what is written here is absolutely and entirely true—fact—then, when asked would you want this for your life, I believe it certain that you would respond with a resounding, “YES!”

“Understanding the physiological and neurological features of spiritual experiences should not be interpreted as an attempt to discredit their reality or explain them away. Rather, it demonstrates their physical existence as a fundamental, shared part of human nature. Spiritual experiences cannot be considered irrational, since we have seen that, given their physiological basis, experiencers’ descriptions of them are perfectly rational… All human perceptions of material reality can ultimately be documented as chemical reactions in our neurobiology; all our sensations, thoughts, and memories are ultimately reducible to chemistry, yet we feel no need to deny the existence of the material world; it is not less real because our perceptions of it are biologically based… It is not rational to assume that the spiritual reality of core experiences is any less real than the more scientifically documentable material reality.” —Sabina Magliocco, anthropologist

Do You Want It?

This has been an exhaustive explanation of the human condition. We have had this sin nature since Adam and Eve considered that with all of God’s resources at their disposal, maybe… just maybe… they could have and do more… be better. It is not merely the thought, or even the urge, that was the sin. But once the desire was entertained, enticed with fascination and curiosity until enraptured into temptation, they lost the original purity of desire. The course was set; put into motion to choose behaviorally to act on corrupted desire. While the sin is the action, there would be no stopping it once the brain was hijacked and taken over by temptation.

Since the onset of sin, it has all gone to hell. Jesus, Apostle Paul, Apostle Peter, and all of the scientific behavioralists who have studied the human brain and mind, and what goes into behavioral choices, agree. When we trust our self-centered, emotion-driven impulses, our behavioral choices trigger at-risk activity that generally produces unfavorable, harmful consequential outcomes that too often put our quality of life at risk. These adverse outcomes then rob us humans from experiencing fulfilling joy and satisfaction due to our discontent. We then hurt ourselves and others. Others hurt us. It is a cycle that can be vicious, and so often is. It’s a done deal.

So, God intervened, Jesus broke through, and the this course of disorder has been changed; made right. At least, that is what I have written here.

What if it is true… all of it?

Do you want it?

If not, why not?

Who, honestly, would not want for their own lives what God wants and has for us once we come to your senses and accept that Jesus loves us, wants to be involved in our life experience, and restore it beyond what anyone can possibly imagine?

It is the question I ask of anyone cynical about this because of negative experiences with the institution of religion, religious groups, and people who profess faith whose flaws have harmed them in some way. It is also the question for skeptics that cast doubt about what they do not see, hear, or feel.

“I can assert most definitely that the denial of faith lacks any scientific basis. In my view, there will never be a true contradiction between faith and science.” —Robert Millikan, Nobel Prize-winning American physicist

The irony in that is that even the cynics of faith trust what they do not see, hear, or feel all the time. You don’t see, hear, or feel gravity but you experience the affects of it. You can say that about all kinds of things. Technology. You will never view a WiFi signal with your eyes. You will never hear it, or feel it; not the signal. The response to that? “I see the bars on my phone.” Again, you do not see, hear, or feel, the signals as they move in milliseconds from your device to towers to satellites and back to your device. It is something we all trust in to one extent or another. We experience the effects—the evidence—of something we do not see. Our unwavering use of technology is our expression of our belief in it, and our faith to trust it. We believe it all works by the evidence that it works.

Faith shows the reality of what we hope for; it is the evidence of things we cannot see. Through their faith, the people in days of old earned a good reputation. By faith we understand that the entire universe was formed at God’s command, that what we now see did not come from anything that can be seen. Hebrews 11:1-3 (NLT)

There are hundreds of millions, if not billions, of people on planet earth who also believe this. We are a community from all races, ethnicities, and cultures all over the world. It is a community of faith. We are linked by faith, love, peace, and joy that transcends explanation. We are the family of God; one God, through relationship with Jesus Christ, whose Spirit inhabits are beings. It may sound odd when said, but once experienced, it is beautiful… wonderful. It cannot be denied or taken away. There is an allegiance to this relationship with God, along with community of believers, who refer to each other as brothers and sisters. It is that tight, that powerful, bound by a kind of love and joy that is beyond description.

Is it a cult? Not at all! It is a family. All our invited and welcome to enter in and belong.

In response to such animosity and conflict in the world that is so aggressive in robbing people of joy by the degrading someone’s life experience, there is Jesus. Jesus is not only healing what’s broken and restoring one’s life experience into something new, he is the giver of so much that builds on the quality of experience in life from being broken and empty, and to making it whole and filled.

I am the door. If anyone enters by Me, he will be saved, and will go in and out and find pasture. The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly. John 10:9-10 (NKJV)     

Living out faith is a reflection of what we have come to know and trust. It is an expression of our gratitude for what God has done in us and for us. It is in this reality that we are empowered to trust more in what we know rather than trusting in how we feel. Even when feeling challenged, threatened, fearful, feeling badly, we know better under the conviction and direction of God’s presence by way of his Spirit within the workings of our brain’s regenerated cognitive function. It is the science of brain chemistry and faith in God’s sovereign goodness working in tandem that is, in one fell swoop, the resounding transformation into our new nature.

It is always a challenge to trust what we know and understand to be reasonably sensible as people of faith… we are in fact still human beings. The difference is that what we know by the realized presence of God in all that we experience (spiritually, intellectually, and emotionally) is greater than the impulse to react emotionally independent of God’s presence.

We may still react impulsively to a feeling in a way that is offensive or causes someone harm. However, there tends to be conviction from within (aside from guilt) that motivates, even compels us, to do what is best and make it right (make amends) without a second thought. It is a motivating component driven by our new nature that features restoration by the transformative regeneration of our beings through the renewal of our minds.

It has been said that when nothing changes, nothing changes. That is true. When changed in relationship with God, everything changes… EVERYTHING!