Brain Again

I wrote about the brain a couple of weeks ago. I reported a comparison between the brain scan of a child who had endured trauma and the brain scan of a child the same age who had not (what we cautiously labeled "normal"). We noted the physical changes that occur from trauma, which lead to incapacities to behave well consistently or even to receive correction normally. Then I spent time noting that even a "normal" brain is fallen, and physically incapable of right behavior or rightly responding to correction all the time. I'd like to ponder a little further on these ideas.

Our baseline is this - a brain that has been significantly damaged in some way is more clearly obvious in its diminished capacity, but a "normal" brain is also fallen and therefore physically incapable of perfectly generating right responses. This is our working assumption. Both are fallen and physically dysfunctional to some degree, but one may be more obvious than the other (or frustratingly less obvious!).

This working assumption also applies to self identity. My self identity is who I see myself to be. Perhaps I see myself as a lowlife. Perhaps I see myself as God's gift to Johnson Country. Perhaps I see myself as unlovable, unforgivable, slow-minded, awfully clever, dashing, hilarious, or socially invisible. Obviously, an accurate self identity is more healthy than an inaccurate one. A significantly inaccurate self identity leads to any number of problems: emotional, social, theological, and so on.

The brain has much to do with one's self-identity. Given our working assumption that all are "brain damaged" but some are more obvious, we are physically incapable of perfectly healthy senses of self identity. We don't have the physical capacity to be exactly correct in how we understand ourselves. And with self identities that are inaccurate to some degree, we are then prone to the problems that come from those inaccurate self identities.

Furthermore, given our fallenness (and our subsequent "brain damage"), part of our self identity can become that we're hopelessly brain damaged, spoiled goods incapable of anything worthwhile. A vicious cycle! We can begin to define ourselves by this incapacitation, accept a label as our identity, and therefore doubt we can ever grow significantly.

Related to this is that our fallen brains are damaged in their role in our beliefs. The brain is involved in what we believe and how we believe it (although not solely responsible for beliefs), and a physically damaged brain, obvious or not, contributes to wrong beliefs.

And yet it is our very beliefs, imperfect as they are, that illumine our path away from these incapacities. The Gospel says that in Christ, I have been made perfect before God. Jesus provides us with His perfection, which means that in Christ, our damaged brains are counted as perfect before God. The resulting errant behaviors, reactions, self identities, and beliefs are counted as perfect before God, too.

Even though we can't believe perfectly, this is a truth that we can believe. It's true whether or not we believe it well, but it is a truth we can believe. We can grab onto it and run with it. Our salvation doesn't depend on how well we can believe this, but we can believe it. And when we believe it, our self identity now becomes something like, I am a child of God who is credited in Christ as if I had a perfect brain which makes perfect decisions. That's a pretty good self identity! Not that we always do make perfect decisions, but that this dysfunction is not my identity. My identity is in Christ, declared perfect and empowered by the Holy Spirit, to one day be gifted with a new, glorified, unfallen brain.

This is one reason why I believe that those with severe brain damage are no less "capable" of salvation. Salvation is not the product of an adequately functioning brain, lest none of us be saved. The perfection of Christ's brain function is adequate for all who, in whatever capacity God has allowed, trust in His Son. I dare say many who suffer damage to the brain can frequently demonstrate a far greater trust than I can. 

The sufficiency of Christ is not limited by our incapacities, whether they are obvious or not. Therefore, our identities need not be anything less than "perfected in Christ no matter what."

Out of Context

"You took my comment out of context!" During any political season, we're sure to hear this excuse for something a candidate said that the opposing party made a big deal about. Most often, it seems, both sides have a point - the candidate did say something offensive, stupid, or inaccurate, and the opposing party did take the comment out of context to make it sound far worse than it actually was. One of the few things they agree on is that the fair thing to do is to take someone's comments within the context they were spoken, and then take whatever issue with it as you please (even though they rarely do so).

We have the same expectation of literature, research, and statistics. Most of us have had homework marked wrong because we quoted something out of context to better fit our point. Statistics are perhaps the easiest to take out of context, according to 3 out of 7 scientists. ;-) One thing that drives me crazy are internet posts that take some factoid out of context to make a point the statistics never did support - I don't care if I agree or disagree with your conclusion, I'm going to call you on it when I see it. It's a form of lying.

For those who study religious texts, we are particularly sensitive to context for quoting. We grieve over "teachers" who rip a verse out of Scripture to make the most unscriptural points ("I can do all things...", "If my people pray...", "Increase my borders..."). Most common, however, is taking a passage out of context to make a perfectly Scriptural point - Scripture does say that, but not in that passage you just quoted. Responsible teachers intentionally consider the contexts: literary, historical, and cultural.

We critique people who take things out of context, and we should. However, there's another contextual concern that we too often ignore. We are far too quick to take people out of context.

At a store, we see a child yell at his mother, neither of whom we know anything about, and then we draw all kinds of conclusions about the child ("how disrespectful!") and the parent ("if she'd practice discipline at home..."). We cry out when someone uses statistics out of context to draw conclusions, and yet we so easily take people out of context to draw all kinds of conclusions. What is the child's story? Does he have an emotional disorder or disease? Did he just lose his father? Is he just an obnoxious brat? What's the parent's story? Is that the child's parent at all? Has she already tried everything and is near her wit's end? Is she an addict and only hears people when they yell?

I'm not at all suggesting that everyone is innocent and we just need to understand them. Sometimes, they're in the wrong. But if we take them out of context, then we're also in the wrong for doing so. We simply cannot take someone out of context and pretend to know what their problem is or what they need. Doing so is a form of lying.

Like statistics, we must understand the context before we understand what we've seen. And for people, that most often means patient listening (or else butting out!). As any teacher would do, we need to do the "research" about the context before we dare suggest we understand the person, let alone be so bold as to conclude what they ought to do.

Use the same discipline - refuse to claim anything about the statistic, or the person, until you've understood the context it comes out of. And if you cannot determine the context, refuse to make any strong assessment at all (otherwise called "being judgmental"). If we can't do this for simple numbers, we cannot do this for complex people with complex histories and varied contexts.

Don't we wish that's what others would do unto us?

"Normal" Doesn't Mean "Correct"

Last week, I attended GRID KC, a conference on the various needs related to foster care of children. Fifty blog entries on what I learned would not suffice, and I still have much to work through. There is one point, that got my head spinning in a couple of directions.

The speaker showed brain scans of two four year olds, one who had endured severe emotional trauma and the other "normal." Emotional trauma can modify brain function in a way that is measurable by a machine! The dysfunction of the brain, by no fault of the child, hampers the child from behaving well, handling stress, and being disciplined.

When a "normal" child misbehaves and we correct or discipline her, she tends to respond with better behavior. When a child with trauma-induced brain dysfunction misbehaves, it may not be within her control to manage her behavior appropriately. Furthermore, the same correction and discipline that worked with the "normal" child may not have any chance at all to work with this child. Simply put, the child may not have the physiological mechanisms to respond appropriately to "normal" discipline. But we typically see this child as "rebellious." Mercifully, some of the brain dysfunction can be reparable.

The hampered brain has been damaged by the Fall of man. Our sin. The child was born with a fallen body (and brain), but the sins of others have caused even more damage so that the child may not be able to behave or be corrected in a healthy way.

The implications in the fostering world are obvious, since almost every child in foster care is there because of trauma. It also has implications in schools and churches, although we don't always know when a child has endured severe trauma in order to react in more productive ways. But as much as this topic deserves space, I want to focus on "normal."

The "normal" brain can respond more "normally." That's not in question. However, the "normal" brain is also damaged by the Fall. So, even a "normal" brain is incapable of consistently behaving rightly, or more to the point, behaving righteously. Furthermore, even a "normal" brain cannot always be corrected or disciplined. We are physically incapable of behaving perfectly or being corrected perfectly merely by appealing to the brain. No amount of counsel, advice, rules, or threats of consequences can make these brains work righteously all the time.

And yet, like the more obvious example of fruitlessly trying to discipline a trauma-damaged brain through "normal" correction, relying solely on discipline for any brain is not reliable. But it's what we rely on almost exclusively. And then we judge one another for not behaving or not responding to correction.

This is not to say we aren't culpable. It's to say we're not always capable. We need new, glorified bodies with new, glorified brains to behave righteously on our own. The Gospel offers us that through the coming resurrection. But before then, we need God's power in order to behave better than our brains are able and to respond to discipline better than our brains are able. The Gospel offers us that, too, through the indwelling Holy Spirit for all who believe.

So, let's continue to encourage, correct, and discipline one another, but with the knowledge that we are limited in our ability for this to work. Don't expect what physiologically can't work all the time to work all the time. But let's also lean on, pray for, and encourage the work of the Holy Spirit in one another to continue to do what we simply cannot do. Let us afford the grace to one another that we are all brain-damaged by the trauma of the Fall, and are being transformed and renewed by Christ. That is the Gospel.

Whadya Remember?

Last week, Lynne and I enjoyed a nice, simple vacation. I was asked to officiate a wedding in Columbus, GA, for a young man who grew up in the church we served from 2003 to 2010. So, we made a whole week of it - first to the Chattanooga area to spend a day with dear friends, then to Dublin, GA, where we used to live, and then on to Columbus. Two thousand miles of mountains, rivers, lakes, evergreens, kudzu, and friends.

Those who were in the youth group when we were there are now ... adults. And it's wonderful. Watching personalities emerge and define, now finding their more mature expression, with clearer heads and more significant priorities. Kids that we had bi-polar relationships with - from thoroughly enjoying to angry corrections - now more than able to relate as adults.

We also got to catch up with so many of our friends, some in their homes, some at a party, and others still at the wedding. People that we broke bread with, stayed up all night in the hospital with, went fishing with (and the subsequent fish fry), hunted with, and learned the Word with. We walked through weddings, baptisms, births, divorces, illness, death, and daily life with some very dear people.

One special visit was to the home of an older couple, James and Mary. James is quite ill and under hospice care. In the weeks leading up to our trip, there was real concern that he wouldn't still be with us by time we arrived. He was, looking frail and surviving on oxygen, but joyful. They spoke about God's goodness and how much they appreciated seeing us again. James said our visit was his best birthday present, which tells you far more about them than us. Lynne understandably left several tears there.

During all these visits, there was lots of reminiscing. Many great memories, lots of "remember that time when...?" We caught up on recent events, but we also enjoyed recalling the times we spent together, the good and the bad. Like the time we unintentionally scared the youngest kids during VBS with a life-size lion costume, turning Aslan into a scary character for some traumatized kiddos. But there was one kind of recall that never occurred, not even once. Not one person said, "Remember that one sermon where you said..."

No one talked about a single sermon - supposedly the thing I was primarily employed to do for that church. Those weren't the memories that bubbled to the top. What we did talk about was the time we spent together, both individually and as groups. That's what we hang onto most. As important as sermons and lessons and meetings are to the life of the church, the greatest impact we have on one another is not flawlessly running our programs, but twisting our busy lives into one another. That is more church than great praise songs and a moving sermon.

What you, Lynne, and I will remember together will not be how well we did church, but how well we were church. Let's continue to twist our busy lives into one another so that one day we will say, "Remember that time when ..." and it not be about what I'm employed to do.

The Gospel of Expectations

Try an experiment. Run your car completely out of gas - absolutely empty tank. Then yell at your car to "Go!" Kick it if it doesn't suddenly start going. Criticize it for not going, for misbehaving, for not acting like a car. Create a snarky meme for your car's uncarlike behavior and post it on Facebook. Complain that there are too many cars out there that don't go. "Back in my day, cars knew how to go!" Keep your kids away from this car, lest they get any ideas about becoming lazy. Blame the government, print a cleverly insulting t-shirt that makes you feel superior to the car, and tell the car that if it can get itself up and take itself to a gas station and pay for the gas itself, then it will all be OK.

So, how did that work out for you? It's ridiculous! It's kind of like Pharaoh forcing the Hebrew slaves to make brick without providing them with straw.

Now self-examine ... do you do the same thing with unbelievers by expecting them to live like believers, even though they don't have the power of the Holy Spirit within them? Do you expect "saved behavior" from unsaved people? Do you criticize the unsaved for living unsaved, for not acting like a Christ-follower? Do you keep your kids away, blame the system, post insults, or wear t-shirts that make you feel superior? Do you tell the unsaved to get themselves up and come to your church and fill themselves up, and then it will all be OK? It's just as ridiculous as yelling at a car without gas for not going anywhere!

Don't be surprised that unsaved people act unsaved. Don't be shocked, bewildered, overwhelmed, or disappointed. Don't judge ... no matter what. Of course unsaved people live like unsaved people. The only people who deserve criticism are the saved people who lived as if they are unsaved. It is Jesus who transforms us and the Holy Spirit who changes how we live, not us. Therefore, to criticize an unsaved person for living like an unsaved person is to tell them that the Gospel is about cleaning up your own act. That brings as much hope as telling a car to fill itself up or telling slaves to make bricks without straw.

Don't lie about the Gospel by wagging your finger at the unsaved. Don't in any way suggest Jesus came so that they could fix their own lives and live like Christ without new birth or the indwelling Holy Spirit. Don't criticize the prostitute or the drug addict for not having enough character to remain pure and clean. Save your criticism for those Jesus criticized - the finger-wagging hypocrites. The sinner's sin is still sin ... it's no less sin, and it's fair to call it "sin." But that's what sinners do, so don't act so surprised or offended.

And now we have freedom! Once we shed ourselves from the Gospel of Fix-yourselves-up, now it is safe to listen to and love people before they live like Jesus. We have the Gospel of Jesus-transforms-us.

By the way, we don't fully live like Jesus, either.

An Experiment in Prayer

I have heard dozens of teachings on "the Lord's Prayer" (also called "the Model Prayer") found in Matthew 6:6-13. This is in the middle of the Sermon on the Mount, in a sequence of statements in which Jesus says "you have heard" some teaching from the Old Testament or the Pharisees, "but I say to you" something even more demanding for righteousness. In this particular paragraph, He's teaching about prayer. He then tells them to pray "this way," and begins the familiar prayer, "Our Father in heaven, may your name be honored..." Or perhaps your more familiar with a different translation, "Our Father who art in Heaven, hallowed by Thy name..."

In these dozens of teachings, I heard very careful (and accurate) analyses of each phrase and how we ought to pray that way, because Jesus said, "Pray this way." I value all the teaching I've received on this.

But I want to add a different angle to the mix, not to replace the good teaching, but to supplement it. Given that Jesus is continually discipling His followers to form them into people who resemble Him well, we can assume He is doing this formation as He teaches us to pray. So, in this model prayer, He's not only telling us how to approach God in prayer, but He's also trying to form us into a particular kind of people. Through praying, He wants us to be changed. He gives us prayer not only as a way to dialog with God, but also as a means to be discipled into Christlikeness.

So, let's look at the Model Prayer in terms of what Jesus wants us to become, and then look at how it might affect praying for something specific. For our purposes, I choose a troubled relationship to pray about as an example.

Fearing (Our Father in heaven, may your name be honored,)

God wants us to be fearing, to be people who fear, honor, and respect God with a sense of awe. This opening to the prayer is not instruction on how to "butter up" God for your requests, but to be a particular kind of person, approaching Him in prayer with a particular attitude and self-awareness.

In the example of praying about a strained relationship, I might pray, "Father, may the way I approach this relationship bring you honor. May our friendship be worthy of Your awesome and mighty name. Make me to be a person who brings honor to You with my friendships." This is a very different prayer than, "Lord, change this person" or "Father, help me to be more tolerant of this jerk."

Missional (may your kingdom come,)

God wants us to be missional, to have His Kingdom be our life goal, our every aspiration. He wants us to carry out the Great Commission of making disciples of all nations. He wants us to use our time, talents, and treasures for the good of His Kingdom, to live here and now based on the Kingdom's values, and to bring tangible elements of the Kingdom to those around us - for His Kingdom to manifest in part now and then to come in full later.

Therefore, I might pray, "Lord, my relationship right now is not running according to the character of your Kingdom. May your Kingdom come into this relationship, and may the two of us collaborate to advance Your Kingdom. May our relationship now be just like it will be when Your Kingdom has fully arrived." This is more immediate than praying that the end of time would come soon so that the Kingdom would be fully established, and then I don't have to suffer this person's annoying behavior any longer!

Submissive (may your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.)

God wants us to be submissive, to surrender our will to His. Jesus did this beautifully in the Garden of Gethsemane just before He was crucified by praying, "Not my will, but Yours be done."

I could pray, "Lord, I'm not really submissive to you right now in my relationship with so-and-so. Regardless of this person's problems, I'm not really pulling for your will in this - I want mine. Change me to be eager for Your will in this relationship. I surrender ... I want to be a fully surrendered person, even in this." Wow - this one hurts when praying about a relationship!

Dependent (Give us today our daily bread,)

God wants us to be dependent, which is brilliantly captured with the idea of daily bread - the stuff I need to get through just one day. And then the next day, I'll depend on God some more. This is the kind of person God wants us to be.

So, my prayer changes. "Father, I have been relying on myself and on my fleshly strength, and worse, I have been pursuing what my selfishness wants in this relationship. You want me to rely on You for this relationship, for You to give me the love, the patience, and the attitude. I need You for this relationship to be healthy. Help me to love well. I depend on You for this relationship. Let me walk dependently in all my relationships."

Free (and forgive us our debts, as we ourselves have forgiven our debtors.)

God wants us to be free - free from our sins ("debts") through forgiveness, but also free from the sins against us (by our "debtors") through forgiving them. Only through forgiveness that we first receive and then grant can we be truly free people.

Then I should pray, "Lord, the relationship between You and me is based on forgiveness. In this case, it's all You forgiving me. My relationship with this other person will only be to Your pleasure through the same forgiveness. But in this case, that's each of us forgiving the other. Help me to be changed by Your forgiveness, to grant forgiveness freely to the other, and even to receive the forgiveness that the other offers me. Help me to be a forgiving kind of friend always."

Holy (And do not lead us into temptation,)

God wants us to be holy, to avoid sin and to escape the temptations to enter into sin. His forgiveness makes us holy through the blood of Christ, but holy living on a daily basis as our practice requires us to change our practices, too. In the Model Prayer, Jesus instructs us to pray for God to help us be holy.

So, I would pray, "Father, in this relationship, I have impure, hurtful, judgmental, and sometimes hateful thoughts. Lead me away from that, not just to have a better relationship, but because of who You want me to be in this relationship - a person who lives according to holiness, even in my friendships."

Rescued (but deliver us from the evil one.)
Finally, God wants us to be rescued (which is what deliver means in this verse). In other words, He wants us to live knowing that He rescued us from ourselves, and so we are a perpetually rescued people, in God's blessings only because of his mercy to rescue us. It's the blood of Jesus that rescued us, so every breath we take was purchased by the rescuing blood. We have an enemy who opposes us because we follow Christ - we have been rescued from him, but also need daily rescue from his continued attacks. We live perpetually with a rescued identity, which should keep us humble.

Therefore, my prayer might be, "Lord, I need rescue in this relationship. Satan wants to have us at each others' throats, and frankly, I've been pretty accommodating. I need rescue from my anger and my desire to 'even the score' with this person. But I have been rescued by Christ, and I also need rescue in this moment. Help me to always live out all my relationships as a rescued one."

# # #

This is not radically different from other teachings we've received, and I would be worried if it was. It is, rather, a different entry point into the same model prayer - to focus the ideas of this prayer onto who God wants me to be, to see the characteristics Jesus is developing in us by praying as He prayed and turning those characteristics into the heart of prayer.

So, I'm conducting a little experiment for a while. Not forever. I'm not saying that this is the way for me to pray for the rest of my life. But I'm going to experiment until the experiment runs dry by intentionally praying along these lines. Already I've seen some barriers broken in my prayer life and in my daily life, simply because I'm praying in a different way. I'm eager to see how the experiment goes.

For this experiment, I've printed out the following list just to remind me. You might print this out and stick it in your Bible and guide your prayers through this for a while. Experiment some yourself.

God wants us to be:

Fearing (Our Father in heaven, may your name be honored,)
Missional (may your kingdom come,)
Submissive (may your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.)
Dependent (Give us today our daily bread,)
Free (and forgive us our debts, as we ourselves have forgiven our debtors.)
Holy (And do not lead us into temptation,)
Rescued (but deliver us from the evil one.)

It's a Coverup!

I apologize upfront for a somewhat morbid illustration, but please indulge me because I think it makes the point well.

Imagine your child comes to you and has wounds on his or her face. There was an accident on a bicycle and then a fall into a rock. As a result, some chipped teeth, a black eye, a cut on the cheek flowing blood, and some swelling. So you, being the good parent that you are, apply makeup with expert care to cover up the wounds. In fact, you do an amazingly good job of it - hardly anyone will notice.

Ridiculous? Of course it is. No good parent would do this. A good parent would take the child to the right doctors to get wounds treated, teeth repaired, and so on. No amount of makeup, regardless of how good, will make the child well. And your concern as a parent is your child's wellness. If the child asked you to do nothing more than apply makeup, you would still go to the doctor because of your commitment to that wellness - you want the child's health to be transformed.

When we go to our heavenly Father with our wounds, our hurts, our sin, our addictions, our anger, our unforgiveness, our jealousy, and our judgmentalism, do we ask Him to just apply makeup so that hardly anyone will notice? Do we ask Him for every kind of "fix" except transformation? Do we ask Him to take away the bad consequences, to take away the bad emotions, and even to take away the bad behavior without asking Him to heal us and transform us?

In Christ, we have been transformed. But also in Christ, we still need to be transformed. There is still an abundance of ways we need to be healed and changed. Our attitudes still need to be transformed, our thoughts still need to be transformed, our words still need to be transformed, our money management still needs to be transformed, our prayer life, our family life, our work habits, our ethics and morals, every corner of life - all of it still needs to be completed in our transformation.

Then why do we ask God to just apply a little more makeup?

In the Old Testament, they had the "Day of Atonement" (Lev 16), called "Yom Kippur" in Hebrew. "Kippur" means "to cover," and was also the name of the lid to the ark of the covenant - the "cover." That's what the OT sacrifice did - it covered sins, but it didn't transform souls. That's what makeup does. And that sometimes what we ask God to do.

Jesus came and offered to transform us. To heal us. Not to cover it all up, but to take it all on Himself and then transform us.

When you come to the Lord in prayer about your brokenness, your sin, your need for healing, pay attention to what you say. Listen to yourself. If you are stopping short of asking to be truly transformed, go deeper in prayer. Keep going deeper until the guttural cry of your heart is, "Father, covering this up is not enough! Not this time! I need to be transformed!"

We would never just slap makeup on our children's serious wounds. May we be so insistent with our own souls.