Our Moods are Not the Litmus for Truth

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Our moods are not always accurate measures of reality. We have those days when things seem too hard. Life seems to roll over us wave after wave and its easy to feel that things will never be ok. In that moment, we can lose our hope and when we lose our hope, the day becomes that much harder.

On hard days, we might tell ourselves things like, 'things are never going to get better.' 'I won't be able to find the solution to what I'm facing.' 'I can't do this.' 'I just can't cope.' These messages, repeated over and over in our minds weaken us. We believe they are true and our emotions respond accordingly. We feel depressed. Pessimistic. Anxious. Overwhelmed. From this position, our circumstances seem even more bleak. It's an understandable cycle and an easy habit to get into. But are our emotions an accurate measure of reality? Just because I am feeling overwhelmed and out of solutions today does that mean that I really will not find a solution? That I will be perpetually stuck in the middle of the problem I am facing?

If one thing is certain in life, it is change. Nothing last forever. For God's children, we have the promise that when we cry out, God hears us and delivers us out of all our troubles. Not only that, but we have the assurance that all things are working for our good. The trials we are finding so difficult can be pillars of strength, forging faith and confidence within us as we press into God and trust Him.

And how do we do this?

We have to teach ourselves how to think. We must hold each thought up to the truth of what God says. If the thought or emotion conflicts with something that God has revealed to you, you need to reject it and replace it with His truth. This is what God talks of when He tells us to be transformed by the renewing of our minds. Following God's advice to reject those negative, depressing and untruthful thoughts and replacing them with His comforting, hopeful ones is the fastest way to mental health and emotional stability. His truths are a splint for your minds and your emotions. But it takes practice. What we choose to think on will feed our emotions. Choose good food.

Here are some of the promises of God that can encourage you on hard days. Use them. Choose them. Believe them. Bring to memory those times when God has come through for you. Meditate on them and let their truth uplift you. It will be life to your body and health to your bones.


- God hears you when you cry out and promises to bring you out of all your troubles (Psalm 34:17)

- Goodness and mercy will follow you all the days of your life (Psalm 23:6)

- God is going to work all things together for your good, even the hard things (Romans 8:28)

- God is moved with compassion by the difficulties you are facing (Psalm 112:4)

- You are growing strong by that which comes against you: growing in perseverance, character and hope (Romans 5:3,4)

- He will strengthen you as you wait on Him (Isaiah 40:31)

These encouraging truths are just scratching the tip of the iceberg of all the promises of God toward us. Try doing a keyword search in a Bible website like this one. Are you feeling hopeless? Do a search on hope and see what God has to say. Are you sick? Search for healing and see the Lord's opinion on it. Train yourselves to these truths. Be encouraged by the hope that lies in them. These are your measure of reality, not your emotions, and by them, you will grow strong, able to face the challenges that come your way.

Peace Beyond the Pain: the Brain's Ability to Heal Itself

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'My soul still remembers and sinks within me...' Lamentations 3:20 

We have a small part of our brain called the hypothalamus. This part of our brain is where all our most difficult, scarring and traumatising memories are stored and I have spoken briefly of it before. When we have been through something painful, the physical residence of this memory is the hypothalamus.

It used to be a belief that our brains were fixed. Those with mental disabilities, illnesses or those who had experienced traumas were believed to be permanently scarred, affected or doomed to the chemical changes that these events or illnesses had marked on their brains. Of course, the Bible never bought into this, but always offered hope with the instruction, 'be transformed by the renewing of your mind.'

In recent years, scientists have made groundbreaking discoveries about the plasticity of the brain. That is, the understanding that the brain is not actually fixed but is moldable, malleable and wired to return to health. There are a number of books out there outlining these encouraging scientific breakthroughs (I would recommend The Brain That Changes Itself by Norman Doidge and Switch On Your Brain by Dr Caroline Leaf). These new findings offer hope to those with troubling pasts, emotional struggles and substantiate the Bible's assurance that personal, mental transformation is well within our grasp.

Amongst this emerging research is the new understanding that memories, too, are not fixed. Rather, they are malleable and subject to reinterpretation each time they are brought back to the conscious mind. This is significant for a number of reasons.

1. It offers hope for those scarred by trauma
2. It puts control back in our hands: we don't have to live and relive those most painful events
3. It confirms God's instruction to choose our thoughts carefully: we have the power to reinforce and re-traumatise ourselves by continuing to bring the painful memories to mind, or we can learn how to re-frame those memories in light of His love and receive God's healing *

In the verse from Lamentations above, we are given a hint at how the human mind operates.

Science recognises a thought as a cognitive event. A chemical impulse that marks a physical landscape on brain matter. In effect, we are continually shaping, inventing and reinventing ourselves based on what we choose to think, believe and meditate on. For those of us who struggle with negative emotional habits and thought patterns (depression, anxiety etc) we know all too well that the brain can reach a state of near perpetual negativity; a bias whereby we distort incoming data based on our pre-existing fears and disillusionment. Rather than seeing life for what it truly is, we distort it according to our fear, traumatic memories and subsequent pessimism. It can be a nasty habit and one that snowballs until our default setting seems to be misery.

Our Lamenting prophet demonstrates the pain that results from bringing back to mind those scarring events: as he recalls the pain of the past, his soul sinks within him. The more we bring to mind the negative events of our past; our perceived failings, our disillusionment, the darker and more depressed we will become.

But there is hope.

Neuroplasticity is God's proof that the redemption of the mind is scientific, tangible and attainable.
We can train ourselves back to peace.

The passage goes on to say:

'This I recall to mind, therefore I have hope. Through the Lord's mercies we are not consumed. Because His compassions fail not. They are new every morning.' vs. 21-23a

I want you to look closely at the sequence of mental events that take place in this passage. Following the recollection of the traumatic, afflicted memory, the writer's soul 'sinks within him.' As he moves to a new mental state, we witness the following:

1. Another recollection is brought to mind: the Lord's faithfulness

2. By switching his mind to the Lord and not the event, the prophet's soul goes from sinking to hopeful 

3. Although the writer has experienced something very painful and real, there is the promise of something new. Something steady, available every morning: the Lord's compassions.

In these verses we are given a snapshot of how we can go about dealing with our own painful thoughts. How we can actually move from pain into peace.

The Lord is gentle and kind. It is as we recognise and translate His character into our traumas that we begin to be free of them. It's not easy. Life has hurt. And it has seemed to prove His lack of care. His unwillingness to intercept on your behalf. Perhaps you were abused as a child. Or witnessed the death of a parent. Perhaps you have been labelled with a mental illness. You feel that God has abandoned you. 

Depending on the level of trauma you have endured, there may be what feels to be a unbridgeable rift between your pain and the belief that God is good. That's ok. Take your time. He will be gentle. He will bear with you. He can take your anger and your doubts. And He can show you where He was while you were suffering.

God has wired us for redemption and for healing. The brain's ability to change and heal itself has been scientifically proven. 

You can be healed. Your pain can be replaced with the knowledge of the Lord's great compassion, which fails not. And as you learn to replace the painful thoughts; to turn your mind onto the mercy of God, you will experience healing and reclaim mental territory that you thought was lost.

God is good. He is for us. And His compassions never fail.

* It is here that I want to make a firm distinction between the natural (and often painful) process of working through the past vs being tormented by the continual reenactment of those painful events outside of the setting of a supportive, guided framework. Many victims of abuse have been suppressed into silence and a pivotal part of their healing is calling back the memories and speaking out. This is a necessary part of the healing process and not what I am addressing here.

What if...

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I am very good at imagining scenarios.

As a writer, my mind can rapidly create a scenario and then go on to imagine the effects and all the possible outcomes should that scenario happen (you don't have to be a writer to possess this talent...many people are brilliant at this creative, imaginative work).

In my writing, this is beneficial; my characters usually have great depth and the scenarios that I create are believable and follow a logical path.

But in my everyday life? This skill is not so great.

I am still learning how to harness my creative mind; the way that I process and make sense of my world. It seems that my real life is a lot like the worlds I build in my novels; full of infinite possibility...everything is connected and anything could happen. I take the simple, everyday happenings to a global or infinite scale...that dizzy spell is possibly a brain tumor...that tuna casserole that I made - the one that tasted a bit different than normal - will probably keep my family up all night with food poisoning. I imagine ramifications and sometimes create solutions for (or freak out about) things that have not happened. May not happen. Probably won't happen.

So, sometimes, my life feels like a really, really bad story. Full of horrible potential.

What if...

As I was sitting down with my laptop this morning, I began to brainstorm a new type of what-if list and I thought I would share it with you today.

You see, the odd thing is, in all my imaginings, with all my creativity, I very rarely imagine good scenarios. It's always the bad ones that steal my brain cells and hijack my emotions. Because of this, you will quite often find me at varying points on the spectrum of stress; anywhere from niggling worry to all out fight-or-flight body-war. The mind is a powerful thing!

As I compiled this list, amidst a morning of mundane, tiring tasks, I began to take heart. I felt life course back through me once again. Because truth brings life. You can't encounter it and not change. The following 'scenarios' find their basis in Scripture. See if you can think of verses to confirm them.

What if... everything gets better?

What if... this difficulty (whatever that is) that I am facing is making me unbreakable?

What if... I am finding myself?

What if... I am going to help others?

What if... my friends love and value me in their lives, warts and all?

What if... I can't escape the goodness of God? What if it follows me forever?

What if... He will only allow what will make me strong?

What if... I don’t have to prove myself?

What if... everything that I value in my life (my family, my friends, my gifts and passions) were all actually free gifts of God and did not come about by any great effort on my part?

What if... I'm growing stronger daily?

What if... I'm allowed to feel bad (and I don’t need to fear it), I can just lean into it and God and let Him move me through in new and creative ways?

What if...I am actually a pretty cool person and my life is going to go quite well?

What if... God is good and He loves me?


If you are a what-if kind of person, try a different approach. Give yourself freedom to explore scenarios: good ones. See if it helps!

The Counter-Cultural Nature of Trust

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For a long time, I have been aware of my biggest battle in my Christian walk. Maybe it's something something you can relate to.
Trust.
The foundation of the faith.
We are supposed to take God for His word. To lean hard into it, in the face of adversity. In seeming contradiction. And yet, unfortunately, most times, when the going gets tough, I split.
I've been doing it ever since I was a little girl, when I thought I found my first flaw in the Bible. You see, I've always been an analyser, a thinker. Kinda smart. But not so smart that I know to trust God, period. Just smart enough to go, 'Ahah! God, I've found a loophole and I just can't get past it!'
(Not so smart at all, actually)

It's no wonder, given this attitude of mine, that I have struggled with anxiety.When you think that you can outsmart God, or that you have somehow out-thought Him, the result is pretty much guaranteed. You're gonna feel anxious. Maybe not immediately, but eventually. It's a pretty big call to think you've found error in the Creator of the Universe.

I'm thirty four years old and I am just beginning to grab with determination God's instruction to trust in Him with all my heart and lean not to my own understanding. It would have made my life a whole lot easier had I grabbed it by the horns twenty years ago. But I had my own journey to take.

Leaning not on our own understanding...
This instruction pretty much flies in the face of a progressive, post modern world.
Christians look pretty ignorant these days, by education standards. Casting our doubts into the hands of God can get us the label of 'ignorant', 'blind' or 'naive'.
Modern culture encourages us not to be wary of our understanding, but to use it as a navigational tool for truth.

How well is that working, do you think?
Six billion people each using their own understanding to navigate and interpret the complex, multi-faceted world of ethics, morality, and truth.

I've touched on post-modernism before and while I definitely engage with some of the issues the movement raises -- and consider myself an advocate for critical thinking -- there are times when we need to put our thinking on the altar. God offers a unique way to find truth, one that bypasses the mind and goes straight to the spirit.
Faith.

After all these years running in the circles of 'intelligent thinking' I have come back to my pretty simple, base foundation, which is:

God is good and I can trust Him.

It's blind trust.
It's basically stupidity.
And deliciously, ironically and counter-culturally it's the starting point for knowledge.

'...The statutes of the Lord are trustworthy, making wise the simple.'

Psalm 19:7b

Gandalf, Build-Your-Own-God and the Great I AM

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There are a lot of stances on God out there. Who He is (or isn't), whether He exists or is a figment of the imaginations of weak-minded people, of touch-feely people, of intellectually-outdated people.

Some of the more popular thoughts on God include: (listed in order of likeability...well actually number 2 blows, but I figured we ought to start with no-god)

1. God doesn't exist
Never has, never did. There is no higher power and the life we live here is all we have and all we can hope for. Whether this belief is scientifically based, comes from suffering or is simply a license to live without limits, it essentially says, there is no God. And that's fine, we are entitled to this stance.

2. God as an excuse for bigotry, evil, pride and hate
Don't have much to say about this god. Unfortunately, he exists.

3. The Deist Theory
There is a being; and he dwells high in the clouds. He made the world and watches with a kind of detached dismay at His creation gone crazy. He sees suffering and tuts over it, but doesn't act. He is detached, emotionally disconnected, and doesn't meddle in the affairs of his created beings. He's kinda like the father who is always at the office or the pub; the one whose kids grow up with a faint awareness of a tall guy who pops up at dinner time and appears occasionally in photos, like a smudge in the corner.

4. Gandalf God
He's like Yoder and Mr Miyagi in one white-bearded Deity. He is all that is wise and sage and stands in the sidelines drawing out the best in us. He is great, don't get me wrong, but there's something a little cheesy about a being who talks in cliches and looks like he could use a good dose of Metamucil.

5. Build-Your-Own-Deity
There is a god but he/she/it is a kind of vague god, Customised to our beliefs, much like one of those build-it-yourself burgers at McDonalds. This god is all that is good in the world, pops up in all belief systems (it is the same Being after all) and is basically whoever you want him to be. This kind of being doesn't really evoke much confidence; a god who can be shaped by my thoughts and beliefs is not a tangible, distinct and separate being, but a figment of thought; an idea, and as noble, moral, spiritual or lovely as that is, that is not the kind of god I need.

Thankfully, these gods are not the God of the Bible:

6. The Great I AM
He is distinct and contained; an entire being not dependent on me or defined by my thought. He has clear parameters around His being; what He stands for, who He is, what He permits, what He won't tolerate. He is not a Dictator, but a Distinct Being with strong, well defined edges, driven by love and bursting with surprising grace.

He is the Father we wish we had had growing up; the one who tells us we are a Princess or throws the footy around with us. The one who makes us eat our vegetables but can tickle us until we wet ourselves. The one who says no, we can't have a tattoo for our twelfth birthday because He knows what is good for us.

This God will always turn around with a warm hug and a listening ear, no matter what we have done, who we think we are. This God dines with sex workers and extortionists and yet has a pretty strong stance on sin (In fact, He literally cannot tolerate it) and pretty high requirements. He doesn't want your best efforts. He wants YOU. All of you, good and bad.

Of course, this is part of the wonderful mystery of I AM.

He came up with a brilliant plan so that sin wouldn't stand between Him and His creation. It has nothing to do with goodness, effort or general saintliness and everything to do with persistent, fatherly love and the enabling power of an abiding Presence.

This, people, IS God. We have been sold a lie.

God is not dead and He is not defined by my thought. He is separate from it and we are given the opportunity to shape our beliefs to His reality.

Which stance are you?

5 Hot Tips I've been Given in Church

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1. You’re noticing the problem because you are part of the solution

It’s easy to become dejected, discouraged or critical when we see problems in our church, our workplace or our social environment. Bitterness and complaining can set in quickly, as too, can apathy. It is far too easy to walk into a room, take its pulse and say, ‘I’m outta here.’ But, perhaps you’re noticing the problem because you are part of the solution. We have each been given unique gifts, talents and insights to bless those around us. Rather than feel discouraged when you notice a missing ‘piece’ in the puzzle, pray, ‘God, use me to fill that gap.’

2. No rear-view Christianity

The enemy loves to use past failures to keep us from moving forward. It is one of the favourite tools in his arsenal. He will remind you of the mistakes you made yesterday, last year, last decade. He may even point out the mistakes of your nearest and dearest to remind you, ‘Hey, if they couldn’t do it, what makes you think you can?’ We are always in motion; we decide which way we will point our noses. If our gaze is on the past and it’s mistakes, chances are we will repeat them. While there is a time and a place to prayerfully deal with the past, ruminating on our failures will only hold us back. 

3. Quit asking why it didn’t work for someone else

Jesus established an important principle when he told Peter not to look at his friend, John, but to follow Him instead. Using each other as a plumb line never works. Why? Because we are human. We have our moments of brilliance and our moments of not-so brilliance. Times when we are living in obedience to truth and times when we are slip-sliding around in the flesh. Looking at each other and worse still, using each other’s experience as a litmus for God’s truth is a fast track to doubt and discouragement. Why did that person die of cancer and that other one was healed? Well, I don’t know and no matter how much time you spend wondering on it, neither will you. What I do know is what God tells me in His Word. That is the plumb line.

4. Things will never be the same again

While many of us do not like change, knowing that things will never be the same again can be one of the most liberating aspects of the Christian life. God tells us that He is working in us and that we are going from strength to strength and glory to glory. This means that we are always forging new territory and gaining new victory. We might take our time to learn the lessons God would have us learn, but praise God, our future looks different to our past.

5. Stop trying to be what you already are

Many Christians live in perpetual cycles of sin, guilt, confession, sin guilt confession. We have been told that our sin separates us from God. Guess what? They got it wrong. Once we accepted Christ, we were immediately, irrevocably and legally cleared of all debts against us; past, present and future. Sin ceased to be the problem between us and God. What that means is that we can step off the silly cycle. We can wholeheartedly take for granted the fact that when God looks at us, He sees only the work of Christ. Does that mean He is happy when we sin? No. God is continually working in His children to will and to do His will. However, sin no longer separates us from His presence. How could it? We need His presence to help us when we are at our messiest. We don't need to try to please the God who looks at us and says, ‘I see no stain upon you.’

Your Timeline in God

You are plonk bang in the middle of God's timeline.
It's easy to feel stuck in our life, between the failures of yesterday and the fears for tomorrow. We can lose our present to worry and fear. And yet, we are living in God's time.

• Before the worlds were formed, He knew you. Your days were planned before you had them. (Ephesians 2:10, Psalm 139:16)

• Two thousand years ago, He tucked you firmly into the work of Christ. You were buried and resurrected with Him and given newness of life before you even took your first breath. (Romans 6:3-5)

• Decades ago, it was Him who formed you in the matrix of your mother's womb. He set his seal on you and said, 'Child, you are mine.' (Psalm 139:15, Isaiah 43:1)

• When you took Christ into your heart, He filled you with his Spirit and adopted you into His family. You belong to Him, whether you feel it or not. Filled with Him and bestowed with all the privileges of the children of a God. (Ephesians 1:5, Romans 8:15, Galatians 4:6)

• Today, He is your I Am. Sufficient for the worries of this moment. A present help in trouble. Outside of time and always accessible; He is your now. (2 Corinthians 9:8, 2 Corinthians 12:9, Psalms 46:1)

• Tomorrow, He goes before you. And for every tomorrow after that. His strength will be there until your last breath. (Deuteronomy 31:8, Deuteronomy 31:6, Isaiah 41:10)

God has sealed you behind and in front, your timeline is held securely in His hands, in His will. There is not a day where you will be without Him. Not a breath even. There is not a place where you can flee from His presence, from His plan for your life.

Read Psalm 139 to understand exactly how precious you are to God, how intimately He knows you and how thoroughly He holds you.

You, my dear, are unequivocally and completely safe, nestled in the timeline of God.

'But I trusted in, relied on, and was confident in You, O Lord; I said, You are my God. My times are in Your hands.'

Psalm 31:14,15a