God Offends the Mind to Reveal the Heart.
I have been sick for nearly 4 years. My illness started out small, mostly an inconvenience. But it grew and became painful, disabling, and finally life threatening. I was forced to resign my position as pastor of a church. I spent 12 to 18 months in great pain, mental confusion, and weakness. For most of that time I was either laying on a couch or in bed. I went to many doctors and spent a great deal of money, most of which was donated. I had hours of painful dental work performed and took medicines that made me nauseated, weak and depressed. I lost contact with most of my friends and my congregation. I lived effectively disabled, alone, in pain, confused and wondering why God had allowed this to happen to me.
I was attacked on three levels. I had thought that my teaching, which was very practical and response oriented, would always be used by God to build his kingdom. For as long as I lived, I saw my position in the broader Christian community as being a facilitator. I had a large network of ministry associates and had worked on many communitywide projects and events. I loved to worship the Lord. I played the guitar in our worship band, and I spent hours every day, worshiping God by myself. I wrote music and recorded two albums. But now I could not even hold a guitar or sing a song. I could barely attend church once or twice a month.
In addition, like anyone else, I also had personal demons to fight. My childhood was far from perfect. The abuses and wounds I received had driven me to drugs and alcohol before meeting Jesus. After joining the church, I experienced many negative things. I was rejected, vilified and used by other brothers and sisters in the Lord. My memories of these experiences were vivid, and I could keenly feel the pain. I never imagined that I would go through what I was now going through. My mind constantly returned to the memories of my earlier life. These memories seemed to cry out, telling me that God had deserted me and that I would never experience life in the Spirit again. My mind was tempted to become deeply hurt. After all, my knowledge no longer had an outlet of expression and my creativity was totally shut down. I couldn't even live on my memories, because to go there would make me feel deserted or disqualified.
After about two years of fighting the voices in my head, I realized that to win this battle, I had to give up. I had to stop relying on my knowledge. I had to pour my creativity out like a glass of bitter wine and to focus on the good things God had done for me and my family, rather than on the challenges I was facing. This was particularly difficult, because as I was fighting, the doctors were telling me that my condition was getting increasingly worse. They told me my disease was incurable and progressive, and that it would eventually totally disable me and end my life. To be honest, there were times when I was offended with God and the church and even myself. As I looked at my offense, God called me to look deeper into my heart. What I saw there was hard to examine. The darkness of my soul, which I had kept hidden, was overwhelming. I saw my sin and my failures so clearly that I often spent hours weeping before the Lord. There were things there that I could not overcome. I cried out to God for mercy and forgiveness and begged him to release me from the bondages I saw there. God was faithful. He didn't condemn me. He didn't deny my failures and faults. Instead he forgave me, and healed the broken parts of my heart. Then he began to teach me new ways to think, new ways to feel and new ways to act.
God began to teach me. He showed me that the human mind has three basic functions. First, it gathers, retains and processes information into knowledge. Second, our minds contain the seeds of creativity. Finally, our minds store our memories.
Obviously there are many kinds of information. There's sensory information, which comes to the brain via the body. When you feel your skin is cold, you are aware of it because of your mind. You look at an apple and see that it is red. You do so by your mind translating into information the images created by light. Your mind also creates understanding of the circumstances surrounding the information it gathers. This is the process of learning. It is unique in that it takes in information from many sources and processes that information into knowledge. This knowledge is then stored in your mind and is added to other information to increase knowledge. How much knowledge you have is directly contingent upon how much information you have gathered and processed.
Creativity is a function of the mind, which takes previously gathered information, personal experience, and imagination, and processes these into previously unknown ideas. These ideas then take shape within the context of talent. An example would be when you hear the sound of a brook that runs near where you’re sitting. Your mind gathers the sounds and processes them into a new idea: “I could make those sounds with my flute,” you think. So reaching into your backpack you take out your flute and begin to mimic the sounds of the water running over rocks. Then you come up with a new sound all your own.
Memories are unique. They are your perceptions and interpretations of words, actions or events which you have experienced. They are composed of the thoughts, physical feelings and emotional responses that are contained in these interpretations. No two people have exactly the same memories. You all perceive events and exchanges of emotion, as well as our reactions to these events and emotions, differently. It is that perception, stored in your mind, which you call memories. These memories can be complex, filled with exacting details. Or they can be simple images of loosely connected experiences. Good or bad, once these memories have been imprinted on your mind they are with you for life. The unique thing about memories is that they can be stored in your active thoughts or they can be hidden away so that you don't have to deal with them.
There are many other functions of the mind, many you don't yet understand. But these three, knowledge, creativity and memory are central to your life and are often used by God to develop your spiritual walk.
He often develops your spiritual walk by offending your mind. That is to say, he chooses a portion of your knowledge, creativity or memories and shows it to be incorrect or ineffective. He does this directly, or he uses circumstances or other people. In any case, you discover that something, which you thought was true and were able to depend upon, was false. For example, you might create what you believe to be a masterpiece, but it turns out to be a failure. Or you might be around someone who speaks or acts like a person who has hurt you deeply in the past and you experience a painful memory. It is this falsehood, or this failure, or this discovery that borrows deeply into you and causes you to be offended. This offense reveals part of your heart or soul that is either wounded or disconnected from God. It is this heart condition, which God wants to change.
It is his desire to heal your wounded heart and to instruct you in the ways of truth. God is not nearly as concerned about you having accurate knowledge as he is with your heart and mind being connected to him. Knowledge is good and information is plentiful, but the only knowledge that will last is the knowledge of God's love. You cannot control what portion of all knowledge you can gain. You can however be responsible for the knowledge you do have.
Most anyone when asked if they are creative will say, “Yes, to some degree.” In fact, you use creativity many, many times a day. You are constantly gathering new information, and having new experiences, which you then process into new thoughts and feelings. These new thoughts and feelings allow you to improve functions of everyday living, as well as to create mechanically, artistically, scientifically, relationally and educationally. Society has limited the applause for creativity to those few who have developed their talents to superior levels. But God has given each of you the power to create. When the baker comes up with a new way to mix his dough, he is exercising his creativity. When a student discovers a new method of studying mathematics, he is exercising his creativity. And when anyone takes the knowledge gathered throughout life, and discovers a new application, method or expression, they are exercising creativity. You cannot control how much creativity you have. You can, however, take responsibility for what you do with your creativity.
When looking into memories, you enter a part of the mind that is so complex it would seem impossible to understand. Because you all experience life from a different vantage point, you all have different memories. Three people can be in the same place at the same time, and a year later, they will remember it different ways. You may have had experiences that you don't remember. You can have memories that are terribly frightening. You have memories that make you sad and glad and mad. One thing for certain is that your memories can affect your decisions, your willingness to risk and your relationships They can also deeply impact your beliefs about God. You cannot control what you remember or what you don't remember. You can however take responsibility for what you do in response to your memories.
There is a strange and wonderful connection between the function of your mind and what is called your heart. The heart is that part of you where your personhood exists is, where your personality is formed, where values exist and where what makes you unique. Of course, I am not talking about the physical heart. I am instead, referring to the soul, the core of your being. The heart is that which makes you the person you are. The heart interacts with the gathering of information and its corresponding development of knowledge. It is also engaged in the development and execution of creativity. And finally, the heart is tied directly to your memories. You remember what you feel and then you decide whether to continue to experience your memories or to block them.
Every man has an image of God, including his holiness, righteousness and goodness. Even the atheist has to make reference to God to declare that he doesn’t believe in Him. As a follower of Jesus, it is your opportunity and responsibility to give up your life, to take up your cross and to follow in his footsteps. God wants you to be like him. He has given you righteousness through the Cross. This is by faith, through grace. This righteousness allows you to have fellowship with God. It also causes you to enter into the process of becoming like God. Once you have been saved, you undergo an ongoing series of tests, trials and cleansings to change you into the image and likeness of God. In short, you were on the road that leads away from your sinful natures and toward the perfect nature of Jesus Christ.
When you have been on this road for a little while, you come to the understanding that the difficulties in life are not there to tear you down. Instead they provide opportunity to exchange your old ways of thinking, feeling and acting, which led to death, for God's ways which are filled with life. Your trials are meant to make you strong. Notice that this new life requires that you make the choice to allow God to change your understanding, to determine where and how you use your creativity, and to decide how you respond to your memories.
More times than not God Himself is the author of a trial. I don't mean to say that He sends illness to us to make us chanage. No, instead, He will ask you to do something that makes you feel uncomfortable. He will tell you to speak as a child, when you see yourself as highly educated and knowledgeable adults. Or he may ask you to accept the loss of a job taken from you unfairly, declaring you to be incompetent where you see yourself to be excellent. Maybe he will send you to give loving care to an individual who has wounded you in the past; someone whose memory haunts you and brings you pain. Many times,
I have been sick for nearly 4 years. My illness started out small, mostly an inconvenience. But it grew and became painful, disabling, and finally life threatening. I was forced to resign my position as pastor of a church. I spent 12 to 18 months in great pain, mental confusion, and weakness. For most of that time I was either laying on a couch or in bed. I went to many doctors and spent a great deal of money, most of which was donated. I had hours of painful dental work performed and took medicines that made me nauseated, weak and depressed. I lost contact with most of my friends and my congregation. I lived effectively disabled, alone, in pain, confused and wondering why God had allowed this to happen to me.
I was attacked on three levels. I had thought that my teaching, which was very practical and response oriented, would always be used by God to build his kingdom. For as long as I lived, I saw my position in the broader Christian community as being a facilitator. I had a large network of ministry associates and had worked on many communitywide projects and events. I loved to worship the Lord. I played the guitar in our worship band, and I spent hours every day, worshiping God by myself. I wrote music and recorded two albums. But now I could not even hold a guitar or sing a song. I could barely attend church once or twice a month.
In addition, like anyone else, I also had personal demons to fight. My childhood was far from perfect. The abuses and wounds I received had driven me to drugs and alcohol before meeting Jesus. After joining the church, I experienced many negative things. I was rejected, vilified and used by other brothers and sisters in the Lord. My memories of these experiences were vivid, and I could keenly feel the pain. I never imagined that I would go through what I was now going through. My mind constantly returned to the memories of my earlier life. These memories seemed to cry out, telling me that God had deserted me and that I would never experience life in the Spirit again. My mind was tempted to become deeply hurt. After all, my knowledge no longer had an outlet of expression and my creativity was totally shut down. I couldn't even live on my memories, because to go there would make me feel deserted or disqualified.
After about two years of fighting the voices in my head, I realized that to win this battle, I had to give up. I had to stop relying on my knowledge. I had to pour my creativity out like a glass of bitter wine and to focus on the good things God had done for me and my family, rather than on the challenges I was facing. This was particularly difficult, because as I was fighting, the doctors were telling me that my condition was getting increasingly worse. They told me my disease was incurable and progressive, and that it would eventually totally disable me and end my life. To be honest, there were times when I was offended with God and the church and even myself. As I looked at my offense, God called me to look deeper into my heart. What I saw there was hard to examine. The darkness of my soul, which I had kept hidden, was overwhelming. I saw my sin and my failures so clearly that I often spent hours weeping before the Lord. There were things there that I could not overcome. I cried out to God for mercy and forgiveness and begged him to release me from the bondages I saw there. God was faithful. He didn't condemn me. He didn't deny my failures and faults. Instead he forgave me, and healed the broken parts of my heart. Then he began to teach me new ways to think, new ways to feel and new ways to act.
God began to teach me. He showed me that the human mind has three basic functions. First, it gathers, retains and processes information into knowledge. Second, our minds contain the seeds of creativity. Finally, our minds store our memories.
Obviously there are many kinds of information. There's sensory information, which comes to the brain via the body. When you feel your skin is cold, you are aware of it because of your mind. You look at an apple and see that it is red. You do so by your mind translating into information the images created by light. Your mind also creates understanding of the circumstances surrounding the information it gathers. This is the process of learning. It is unique in that it takes in information from many sources and processes that information into knowledge. This knowledge is then stored in your mind and is added to other information to increase knowledge. How much knowledge you have is directly contingent upon how much information you have gathered and processed.
Creativity is a function of the mind, which takes previously gathered information, personal experience, and imagination, and processes these into previously unknown ideas. These ideas then take shape within the context of talent. An example would be when you hear the sound of a brook that runs near where you’re sitting. Your mind gathers the sounds and processes them into a new idea: “I could make those sounds with my flute,” you think. So reaching into your backpack you take out your flute and begin to mimic the sounds of the water running over rocks. Then you come up with a new sound all your own.
Memories are unique. They are your perceptions and interpretations of words, actions or events which you have experienced. They are composed of the thoughts, physical feelings and emotional responses that are contained in these interpretations. No two people have exactly the same memories. You all perceive events and exchanges of emotion, as well as our reactions to these events and emotions, differently. It is that perception, stored in your mind, which you call memories. These memories can be complex, filled with exacting details. Or they can be simple images of loosely connected experiences. Good or bad, once these memories have been imprinted on your mind they are with you for life. The unique thing about memories is that they can be stored in your active thoughts or they can be hidden away so that you don't have to deal with them.
There are many other functions of the mind, many you don't yet understand. But these three, knowledge, creativity and memory are central to your life and are often used by God to develop your spiritual walk.
He often develops your spiritual walk by offending your mind. That is to say, he chooses a portion of your knowledge, creativity or memories and shows it to be incorrect or ineffective. He does this directly, or he uses circumstances or other people. In any case, you discover that something, which you thought was true and were able to depend upon, was false. For example, you might create what you believe to be a masterpiece, but it turns out to be a failure. Or you might be around someone who speaks or acts like a person who has hurt you deeply in the past and you experience a painful memory. It is this falsehood, or this failure, or this discovery that borrows deeply into you and causes you to be offended. This offense reveals part of your heart or soul that is either wounded or disconnected from God. It is this heart condition, which God wants to change.
It is his desire to heal your wounded heart and to instruct you in the ways of truth. God is not nearly as concerned about you having accurate knowledge as he is with your heart and mind being connected to him. Knowledge is good and information is plentiful, but the only knowledge that will last is the knowledge of God's love. You cannot control what portion of all knowledge you can gain. You can however be responsible for the knowledge you do have.
Most anyone when asked if they are creative will say, “Yes, to some degree.” In fact, you use creativity many, many times a day. You are constantly gathering new information, and having new experiences, which you then process into new thoughts and feelings. These new thoughts and feelings allow you to improve functions of everyday living, as well as to create mechanically, artistically, scientifically, relationally and educationally. Society has limited the applause for creativity to those few who have developed their talents to superior levels. But God has given each of you the power to create. When the baker comes up with a new way to mix his dough, he is exercising his creativity. When a student discovers a new method of studying mathematics, he is exercising his creativity. And when anyone takes the knowledge gathered throughout life, and discovers a new application, method or expression, they are exercising creativity. You cannot control how much creativity you have. You can, however, take responsibility for what you do with your creativity.
When looking into memories, you enter a part of the mind that is so complex it would seem impossible to understand. Because you all experience life from a different vantage point, you all have different memories. Three people can be in the same place at the same time, and a year later, they will remember it different ways. You may have had experiences that you don't remember. You can have memories that are terribly frightening. You have memories that make you sad and glad and mad. One thing for certain is that your memories can affect your decisions, your willingness to risk and your relationships They can also deeply impact your beliefs about God. You cannot control what you remember or what you don't remember. You can however take responsibility for what you do in response to your memories.
There is a strange and wonderful connection between the function of your mind and what is called your heart. The heart is that part of you where your personhood exists is, where your personality is formed, where values exist and where what makes you unique. Of course, I am not talking about the physical heart. I am instead, referring to the soul, the core of your being. The heart is that which makes you the person you are. The heart interacts with the gathering of information and its corresponding development of knowledge. It is also engaged in the development and execution of creativity. And finally, the heart is tied directly to your memories. You remember what you feel and then you decide whether to continue to experience your memories or to block them.
Every man has an image of God, including his holiness, righteousness and goodness. Even the atheist has to make reference to God to declare that he doesn’t believe in Him. As a follower of Jesus, it is your opportunity and responsibility to give up your life, to take up your cross and to follow in his footsteps. God wants you to be like him. He has given you righteousness through the Cross. This is by faith, through grace. This righteousness allows you to have fellowship with God. It also causes you to enter into the process of becoming like God. Once you have been saved, you undergo an ongoing series of tests, trials and cleansings to change you into the image and likeness of God. In short, you were on the road that leads away from your sinful natures and toward the perfect nature of Jesus Christ.
When you have been on this road for a little while, you come to the understanding that the difficulties in life are not there to tear you down. Instead they provide opportunity to exchange your old ways of thinking, feeling and acting, which led to death, for God's ways which are filled with life. Your trials are meant to make you strong. Notice that this new life requires that you make the choice to allow God to change your understanding, to determine where and how you use your creativity, and to decide how you respond to your memories.
More times than not God Himself is the author of a trial. I don't mean to say that He sends illness to us to make us chanage. No, instead, He will ask you to do something that makes you feel uncomfortable. He will tell you to speak as a child, when you see yourself as highly educated and knowledgeable adults. Or he may ask you to accept the loss of a job taken from you unfairly, declaring you to be incompetent where you see yourself to be excellent. Maybe he will send you to give loving care to an individual who has wounded you in the past; someone whose memory haunts you and brings you pain. Many times,
God will offend your mind in the religious world. He may change how he wants you to sing in church. He may cause you to do embarrassing things. God might select a person to lead you who in your eyes is not capable. Jesus might tell you to be quiet when you want desperately to share your ideas, your dreams, or your theology. He might choose someone else besides you to lead worship or to teach a Bible study. Any of these things, and a lot more, can cause an offense to your mind and reveal a brokenness in your heart.
The Bible tells you to guard your heart: “Prov. 4:23: Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life.” To do this you must be aware of when you are taking offense. Whether you are offended by the circumstances of your life, or by other people, or by God himself, when the offense comes, you must look to your heart.
My body still does not function well. I still have many of the symtoms of MSA. I believe God hasl healed me, that He will restore me to my family and that He will again use me in ministry for his kingdom's sake. Most of all I believe he loves me and will care for me and for my family. I'm glad that God sent offense to me. It has given me the opportunity to have my heart exposed, and healed. I know this is not the last time God will allow an offense my way. I also know that when it comes my heart will be ready for the Master’s touch. In spite of my failures and my misconceptions of who God is and how he loves, I am still growing and I am living in peace. This touch is available to anyone who will humble themselves, lay down their offences and seek His healing touch.
The Bible tells you to guard your heart: “Prov. 4:23: Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life.” To do this you must be aware of when you are taking offense. Whether you are offended by the circumstances of your life, or by other people, or by God himself, when the offense comes, you must look to your heart.
My body still does not function well. I still have many of the symtoms of MSA. I believe God hasl healed me, that He will restore me to my family and that He will again use me in ministry for his kingdom's sake. Most of all I believe he loves me and will care for me and for my family. I'm glad that God sent offense to me. It has given me the opportunity to have my heart exposed, and healed. I know this is not the last time God will allow an offense my way. I also know that when it comes my heart will be ready for the Master’s touch. In spite of my failures and my misconceptions of who God is and how he loves, I am still growing and I am living in peace. This touch is available to anyone who will humble themselves, lay down their offences and seek His healing touch.
2 comments:
I am so glad you started a blog and hope you have many visitors!
Hi Jerry,
It was inspiring to read from your heart on your blog. I want to invite you to share your heart on my online broadcast.
My husband and I still see you as one of the most caring people we have ever known. You words appeared to be working there way through your journey to overcome.
I am not surprised that God trusted you enough to let others witness how hard you are pressing. He chose someone who is sincere and faithful. Yes you are faithful because through everything you knew enough to question God.
Please keep writing
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