S3:E4 CHANGING OUR VIEW OF THE MIND AND EMOTIONAL CHOICE
Resting In The Arms Of The One Who Disarmed You
The Psalmist chooses it.
He has chosen to calm and quiet his soul.
It says clearly, “I have calmed and quieted my soul, like a weaned child with its mother; like a weaned child is my soul within me.”
What do you need that you don't already have to make the same choice? What do we need? The first thing we need is to believe we have this choice to make.
For some reason, it seems within the Christian church the idea that we can train up our emotions is less understood – and certainly less emphasized - than the idea that we can train up our minds.
We are familiar with Romans 12:2 “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.”
This passage encourages us to be in God’s word, study it, love it as psalms 119 says, and allow our cognitive selves to be changed. We are changed when spend time in the word.
We are less familiar with 1 Samuel 30:6, “And David was greatly distressed, for the people spoke of stoning him, because all the people were bitter in soul, each for his sons and daughters. But David strengthened himself in the Lord his God.”
This passage encourages us to strengthen ourselves in the Lord, as in times of distress. Reading on affirms that David’s choice to strengthen himself benefited not only him in the long run, but those who in this passage were against him. Rather than be rendered helpless in seemingly helpless situations, we have the ability to choose to strengthen ourselves in the Lord.
Romans 12 admonishes us to strengthen cognitive faculties toward obedience to the Lord and 1 Samuel 30:6 illustrates David strengthening his emotional faculties in the Lord for good.
We process both cognitively and emotionally. In his book “The Design of Everyday Things.”, which I love, Don Norman says, “Emotion is highly underrated. In fact, the emotional system is a powerful information processing system that works in tandem with cognition. Cognition attempts to make sense of the world: emotion assigns value…Cognition provides understanding: emotion provides value judgements”. (p.47) Norman also tells us that “cognition and emotion cannot be separated…Cognitive thoughts lead to emotions: emotions drive cognitive thoughts. The brain is structured to act upon the world, and every action carries with it expectations, and these expectations drive emotions.” (p.47)
Yet, as followers of Jesus, we often underemphasize, or even push away - our emotions, lumping the idea of emotions into that “lusts of the flesh” category. We even commonly say things like, lower your expectations – or even stop expecting altogether. We say these things in attempt to protect ourselves, and because expectations drive our emotions, doing so shuts off our emotions. But also, then, we are shutting down the source of our value judgements. Simplistically, if we stop expecting, we stop feeling and if we stop feeling, we stop making value assessments, and if we stop assigning value, we lose our ability to choose, and we get stuck. So much here, but bottom line, we tend to underemphasize a necessary element of our mind.
FOCUS: What are you thinking about?
We do so because we tend to categorize emotions as irrational, unreasonable, like an untamed horse only leading to misguided, or even destructive places. We tend to categorize cognitive thought as rational, reasonable, like a trained horse leading us to a desired destination. And again, as Norman states, “We tend to believe that thought can be separated from emotion.” (p. 47) This tendency to both separate and also elevate cognitive processing creates a bias within us individually and corporately within the evangelical church toward spiritual growth through cognitive experience. Because of this cognitive bias, we believe we can train up our minds as our allies toward obedience to God. We seem to be fighting the battle of faith having left a great deal of power behind if we only battle with our cognitive ally. What if we believed our emotions to be our allies as well?
Fuel: How have you experienced your emotions hijacking you? How have you hijacked your emotions and used them to attain a goal?
We know by design our emotions can be our friends or our foes. What if we begin to become more aware that we have choice to utilize our emotions in the Lord and put on the best emotional state for accomplishing what He brings each day before us to accomplish?
I’m not saying we no longer get trapped by our feelings. Our expectations will be unmet. And we’ll feel bad. Our expectations will be met. And we’ll feel good. This seems to happen without our intervention. I’m saying we can consciously intervene to shift ourselves out of an emotional state that will not lead us to be honoring to the Lord. We are less likely to train up our emotions to put this part of God’s design to work in us toward our maturity in and joyful obedience to Him than we are to train up our cognitive thought. Let’s train up both.
FIGHT: In what ways will you fight for rest today?
What’s that thing popping into your mind and within your power that you can do?
When will you do it?
What difference will it make for you and for others when you do?
Who will you tell?
I hope you’ll join me next week as we talk more about training up the mind.
Please follow and comment on this podcast on apple podcasts and follow, comment on, and share our IG posts @MettlEdge.Coaching
I pray this podcast has been and continues to be a blessing.