A tale of a two minds

I wonder how many of us have had prayers where we ask God for wisdom, perhaps asking how to navigate through a difficult situation, and we feel like we only hear the sound of silence in return. I'd be willing to bet it's every one of us who believes in God and prays. If we're being honest with ourselves, I wonder how many of us in those moments truly believe with all of our heart that God hears us and will answer our prayers. We often like to get critical of ourselves and just say that we don't have enough faith. "If only I can get more faith, then maybe God will answer my prayers. I just need to believe more." I know I've said it before.

What if it's not really about gaining more faith? In the book of James, we hear about something called double-mindedness, and how those of us that are of this mindset can expect to not hear from God in our prayers. Being double-minded simply means to have two opposing beliefs, or to be of two minds. When we look at it this way, the focus is no longer about us needing to "try harder" to get more faith, but rather to analyze what our opposing belief system is. Some beliefs are based on experience, therefore to have an opposing belief that is different than what we proclaim with our mouth, can tell us that at some point we had an experience that made our heart believe something different. We can believe something in our heads but have our hearts believe something completely different. This is what it means to be double-minded, and the effect it can have on our faith is tremendous.

When we recognize this in ourselves, we now have something tangible that we can take to the Lord in prayer and ask him to help us to receive his truth. When he replaces our opposing views with his truth, we become of one mind, or consistent belief, in that area. When we have this perspective, the story in Mark 9:24 of the father who came to Jesus for healing for his boy having seizures, makes a lot more sense: "Immediately the boy’s father exclaimed, “I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief!”

Getting back to the basics of our faith

I don't know about you, but I feel more and more every day that the world feels so uncertain, and there's a lot of potential for fear to take over and dominate my thoughts if I allow it to. I have to constantly remind myself that no matter what I think or feel on any given day, God is in control and will see justice served in the end. As crazy as the world seems today, it has actually been worse before. Since the beginning of time, we have been locked in a cycle of going from living in closeness with the Lord, followed by running full speed away from him.

So how are we to find the peace that the Bible tells us to have while living in a world full of chaos, violence, and uncertainty? I can tell you that it's actually very simple. It's all about getting back to the basics. The basic principles of faith are generally the very first things we stop doing when we get lazy and comfortable in our lives. In my own journey, I have found three key things that help to keep me grounded to the goodness of God, and to maintain absolute trust in him no matter what is going on around me. I believe those things are: prayer, maintaining regular study of his word, and being in regular community with other believers.

As human beings, we will never have the timeless overview of the world and history that God has. As a result, we don't see the big picture and how even though he doesn't cause these things, he can use evil, pain, and suffering to draw us back to him. We are the ones who constantly walk away from him and wonder why we don't feel his presence. By staying in his word regularly we can see the pattern since the beginning of time of God reaching out to save and restore humanity out of his absolute love for us. Although we may not understand why when we're in the middle of the story, what we can be absolutely sure of is that our trust in him is well placed. We know how the story ends. And we can know of his absolute goodness. When we pray, we invite him into our hearts and we can ask him to help our belief and trust, even when it wavers. By being in community with other believers, we put ourselves in a position of being able to hear other people's stories and how God has intervened in their lives as well, and to be encouraged by it.

The enemy is real and he wants nothing more than to isolate every one of us and to keep us from doing these basic things that keep us connected to God. Don't neglect the foundational things of faith, they may be simple, but they are absolutely essential. If you have fallen out of habit with any one of these, I would encourage you to start today to make new habits, and daily routines that get you connected to God. He will not bulldoze his way into our lives, He needs to be invited in.

CrossCounsel Podcast: "No need for weed"

Earlier this summer, I was given an opportunity to share some of my testimony and experience with CrossCounsel International Ministries at their annual golf outing & fundraiser. A little later in the summer, I was also given the opportunity to be interviewed on the CrossCounsel podcast, and to further elaborate on my story and experience. That interview was just released this week, so I wanted to post that in case anyone was interested in checking it out (see link at the bottom of this post).

If you haven't heard of CrossCounsel before, it's an incredible ministry that seeks to connect us with the healing power of Jesus by helping us navigate through lie-based thinking and allowing God to shine his truth on it through what they call the MELT process (memory, emotion, lie/belief, truth). God is ultimately the one who reveals truth, but we have to be willing to go to the painful memories and lies we've believed, and open the door to let God into those same places. Once the lies are exposed and truth has been revealed, we can experience freedom in those areas that have held us hostage for so long.

So many of us have fallen into patterns of pain management and conflict avoidance because we simply are unwilling to allow ourselves to feel those painful memories and to hear those lies that we've believed for so long. That is not a life of freedom, that is a life of bondage and of heavy burdens. God has something different in mind for each one of us, but we have to be willing to open the door.

"Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with that person, and they with me." -Revelation 3:20 NIV

CrossCounsel Podcast Ep #149 - No Need for Weed

If you enjoy watching this podcast, feel free to check out a couple of the other ones I was previously able to share on as well:

CrossCounsel Podcast Ep #125 - An Uncommon Message

CrossCounsel Podcast Ep #159 - Weeding Out More Lies

CrossCounsel Podcast Ep #167 - Our Soul's Soundtracks

CrossCounsel Podcast Ep #176 - Truth Independent of Reactions

Thoughts on addiction

According to Wikipedia, "addiction is a neuropsychological disorder characterized by a persistent and intense urge to use a drug or engage in a behavior that produces natural reward, despite substantial harm and other negative consequences." Addiction can come in many forms: hard drugs, alcohol, weed, prescription drugs, porn, sex, shopping/hoarding, gambling, eating, and on and on and on. Usually an addiction starts as a way to avoid something negative, and the substance or behavior seems to promise freedom from that very thing. What always happens though, is that when the avoiding experience is over, that thing being avoided is still there. Now there is a choice to be made, do we face that negative thing, or give in to the temptation to continue with the addictive behavior? Addiction is a series of choices made to continue in that same pattern, over and over, gradually experiencing diminishing returns as the escaping effect lessens with each passing time, but it gets harder and harder to stop as the person continues to try and reach the level of escape they experienced that first time. Addiction can often be recognized as a person who has quit and relapsed many times, as they feel powerless to deal with the issues that caused them to seek an escape in the first place. This can be maddening and depressing, and gradually the person loses hope, as they become enslaved to the very thing they thought was setting them free.

The good news is that addiction is not permanent, and despite a psychological feeling of despair that you will remain trapped in it, anyone can break free from the bondage it produces. It has to start with an acknowledgment that you are not living in freedom, and there needs to be a desire to be free. In order to break free from the addiction you have to get to the root cause, and to recognize what made you fall into this cycle in the first place. Behavior modification alone typically does not work, simply telling yourself to try harder when you have nothing left, just doesn't usually produce lasting results. The things that are driving the addiction, the thing that is underneath it and being avoided, that finally needs to be dealt with. 

I think it is important to have a long-term vision rather than focusing on the short-term day by day desire to escape from something, but rather to look down the road and to decide where you want your life to be. You may not know how you're going to get there, but it is at this point when God can do amazing things with a person's heart if we cry out to him. We take each temptation and see it as a choice, we may feel strongly that we have no choice but to continue in the addiction, but there is always another choice. If we earnestly seek the Lord, he will provide a way out, but we have to be open to what it may be and that it may not look like what we thought he would provide. Sometimes it may come in the form of other people who want to help. It may come in the form of counseling or rehab. It will most likely involve getting out of your comfort zone and being willing to be vulnerable and share your heart with someone. Often when we get to this point and we are willing to break out of our isolation, we find common ground with others who have struggled as well, and they can provide encouragement and pray for us too. Never lose hope. God wants us to live a life of freedom, not of being enslaved in an addiction. When we find ourselves at the fork in the road with a choice to be made, if we ask the Lord to help us make a different choice, he can give us the strength to do so if we are willing to trust him and let him into our heart, into the places we don't want to go to ourselves. The choice is ours to make.

The analysis of our faith

I think honest self reflection is extremely important for every person. One very important question that we should all ponder is, what does our heart really trust in at the end of the day? The things of this world are shifting and temporal, and can have devastating results if we let them be the object of our trust. If we don't feel that our trust is well placed, it can lead to anxiety, which is based on fear. So what then do we put our trust in? The only thing that is rock solid enough to sustain us no matter what happens in the world, is God himself. How does one do this though?

A quick online search reveals that trust can be defined as, "Firm belief in the integrity, ability, or character of a person or thing; confidence or reliance." In order to understand the character of God I believe we need to regularly spend time with him in his word. In order to build confidence in God as the object of our trust, I believe being in regular community with other believers and constant prayer will be crucial for us. I have found that keeping track of things I have prayed for over a long period of time allows me to go back and see how God has answered prayers, often that I would have forgotten about had I not written them down. Over time as we see how God has worked in our lives and in the lives of those around us, our confidence will be built up and will give us assurance that we can rely on him, and that our faith is well placed.

The problem with pain

"Pain is unmasked, unmistakable evil; every man knows that something is wrong when he is being hurt… And pain is not only immediately recognizable evil, but evil impossible to ignore. We can rest contentedly in our sins and in our stupidities; and anyone who has watched gluttons shoveling down the most exquisite foods as if they did not know what they were eating, will admit that we can ignore even pleasure. But pain insists upon being attended to. God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pain: it is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world…"

-C.S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain

Pain is an incredible thing. It's one of the most powerful experiences in our world. It has the ability to cause great distress in the human mind, and at it's core there is a sense of justice not being served, or in even simpler words, that's it just isn't right, or fair. People often either find, or lose their faith in God, over painful events and memories, depending on what they choose to do with it.

People will go to great lengths to avoid pain, which is something I personally relate to a great deal. I spent much of my adult life so far using various things to try and numb painful events from my past.

"We had a plan to build a wall

A great divide that would never fall

To separate us from all the pain

And keep our skeletons locked away

And brick by brick we built it so thick

That it blacked out the sky and all the sunlight

And one by one we all became numb

We were making the bullets to a broken gun"

-Thousand Foot Krutch, Fly on the Wall

This is what is at the core of most addictions. The heartbreaking reality is that the things that mask pain never last. The law of diminishing returns is in full effect in this arena, as the person continues to use something to numb the pain more, the effects go down and they have to use more and more to achieve the desired result. The pain never actually leaves, you can only lock it away for so long before it becomes a festering wound. Out of sight, but not really out of mind.

This is already going to be a long enough post because I am sharing some lengthy material that I find incredibly helpful. I just want to say that this could be an extremely in-depth conversation, so I'm only skimming the surface here. What I want to submit to you is to consider the possibility that perhaps due to many reasons, we have a very skewed view on pain. I would completely agree that pain is not part of God's original plan, but was a consequence of the fall of man and sin entering into the world. I would also say that I do not believe that God causes pain, but rather that he allows it and uses it to achieve his purposes in our lives. I would also argue that God does not like pain anymore than we do. An honest look at Jesus' life and ministry would back this up in my opinion.

One of the most transformational things that I have learned in the last few years, is the realization that God uses our pain and suffering to draw us closer to him, C.S. Lewis said that extremely well in the first quote I shared in this post. The reality is that when everything is great in our lives we often don't believe that we need God and that we can do this all on our own. How then, is he to wake us up out of our delusion? What I would like to leave you with is this last quote from a book I'm reading. Consider the possibility that at the heart of a lot of emotional pain that we experience, are lies that we have internalized at some point about who we are. God often wants to use these painful events to wake us up so that we are in a position where we're willing to seek him and to listen to him, so he can speak truth to those lies and show us who we really are.

"[Transformational Prayer] Principle Four: Since many of the negative emotions we currently feel are reflections of the past, they provide opportunities for the wounds of our lives to be exposed and thus for healing to occur.

It is difficult to address that which has not been identified. God will either allow or orchestrate our surroundings to bring us under duress and testing in order to expose what is our true core belief system (see 1 Pet. 4:12-13). It requires little effort to perform at a high level of "spirituality" when things are going well with us. However, when the fire comes, our impurities are made evident and whatever is on the inside (our true belief system) is made evident. These impurities, falsehoods that we believe, will express themselves through our emotional state and consequential behavior. What we truly believe is made evident through our feelings. As I have already stated, we will feel what we believe. If we choose to follow the smoke trail of our stirred-up emotions back to their original memory source, we may discover the lie-based belief causing the emotional pain. It is here we can find complete freedom from the emotional pain produced by these lies as we receive truth from the Spirit of Christ."

-Dr. Ed Smith, Healing Life's Hurts

Dear Ricky, yes, there is only one God.

Ricky Gervais is a well-known actor and comedian, and I'm definitely a fan of his. He's also pretty outspoken about his atheism and critique of religion. The thing I find the most interesting about this popular argument against God's existence, is that it is self-defeating. This argument attempts to discredit the truth claims of all religions that believe in a god by saying that it is actually the one that holds the truth. All that this argument does is replace other truth claims with another one, but it tries to make itself look better than all the other options by implying it's not doing the very thing it's doing. You can literally turn this argument against itself and say, "There are all these different religions in the world that believe in God, but here you are saying there isn't one. And you think you're right? Right, I'm sure you are. The truth has FINALLY arrived." There is nothing intellectual about just saying "they're wrong and I'm right," it is a position usually loaded with emotionally based views on the world.

At it's heart, the argument here really comes down to one basic question, is God real or not? Of course it is suggesting that no, he isn't, and even subtly implies that religion is ridiculous. Pointing out that there have been many religions from the beginning of time that believed in God but had a different idea about who he is, does not at all act as evidence that God isn't real based on sheer odds alone. Personally I would actually argue the opposite, that if we look at the fact that so many religions believe in God versus belief systems that don't, perhaps they know something even though they can't all be right at the same time on the details. I like how CS Lewis tackles this topic best in his book Mere Christianity when he says:

“If you are a Christian you do not have to believe that all the other religions are simply wrong all through. If you are an atheist you do have to believe that the main point in all the religions of the whole world is simply one huge mistake.”

I agree with Lewis on this issue. In fact, the Bible has talked about humanity's desire to create and follow false gods since the beginning of time. It is therefore no surprise to find thousands of different gods within the world, I would say it's to be expected. To answer this argument's claim directly, yes in fact the God of Christianity has always asserted to be the one true God in a world of false gods, that is an accurate statement.

The world clearly has an origin, and there had to be a cause of that origin, but was it random, or caused by a God? In my own words, Christianity basically says that an honest look at the world itself shows it to be so obvious that the world could not have been randomly created, so that the person has no choice but to accept there is a creator: 

 

"For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse." -‭Romans 1:20 NIV‬

I am by no means minimizing the gravity of a question this significant. The question of whether God is real or not is perhaps the most profound question every human being asks themself at some point in their life. What makes it more complicated for each person is that we tend to base our answer to the question on far more than just what the evidence suggests may be true. We tend to bring all of our personal beliefs about our identity, our emotional baggage, and psychology, into the the decision making process when considering the answer to this question. In order to answer this question, one has to consider many other complex issues, especially evil and suffering in the world, which evokes many strong emotions. We all have a choice to make here though, will we allow the evidence to lead us, or the culture of the time we live in, or our emotions? I wonder if we all have ever fully analyzed what is underneath our beliefs on this issue. If we say we don't believe in God, do we really even know why we assert that claim, underneath all of the surface level reasons we usually default to? If our emotional defenses would have us say there is no God so we can avoid accepting some very hard truths about the world, would we be willing to even accept the possibility that he is real if an honest investigation into the claim would point us to that answer? How much does truth matter to us when it's about the most important question in the world?