Brain Freeze, Dementia, or Just Not Paying Attention?

The pundits and late-night comics pounced on Rick Perry’s embarrassing 53-second memory loss, which occurred in a debate earlier this month. What the experts dubbed a brain freeze was Perry’s inability to remember one of the 3 federal agencies he wants to shut down when he becomes president.

Knowing a little bit about the human brain (I am, after all, a psychologist!), I’ve learned that forgetting is something the brain does when it is overloaded, like deleting data from your ‘documents’ folder. But just like the brain, deleting files doesn't actually remove the data from your computer; it just “forgets to remember” the data. And if needed, can be retrieved.

In I Corinthians 6, the phrase “Don’t you know” appears seven times. This repetition makes one wonder if the Corinthian church was an elderly population suffering from dementia. But Paul knew that they knew these things—he was simply reminding them of what they had seemingly forgotten. Likewise, we are in danger, if we do not “pay more careful attention to what we have heard” (Heb. 2:1).

Future Shock: “I don’t think we’re in Kansas anymore.”

We got an email last week from a pastor in a rural village in Kenya, Africa, who found the Well of Life Ministries website and had begun listening (or watching) the Treasures of Truth. What an amazing thing has happened in our lifetime—a world-wide-web of instant communication.

When I was a college student in 1970, everyone was reading the book “Future Shock”—a term by author Alvin Toffler describing the psychological state of individuals and entire societies from "too much change in too short a period of time." Popularizing the term “information overload,” he believed these future changes would cause people to feel overwhelmed, disoriented, stressed and disconnected.

Forty years later, the future shock has become a present reality. And sociologists and psychologists are pondering its mental & emotional effects on individuals and societies. Remember when Dorothy of the Wizard of Oz said: “I don’t think we’re in Kansas anymore.” Well as much as we’d like to, we can’t just click our heals and go back to the way things used to be.

If you’re feeling overwhelmed these days, reflect on Jesus’ timeless words. “Come to me, all of you who are suffering from information overload, and I will teach you how you to rest in these stressful times when things are changing so fast” (Mat 11:28-29, Greg’s paraphrase!). When the cosmic commotion was too much for Jesus, He found His rest in God's unchanging Presence.

What Really Saved the Miners!

What you probably won’t read on the front page of today’s newspaper is that while the trapped miners in Chile waited for their rescue, they were listening to recordings of sermons, Bible studies and Christian music, thanks to the efforts of Chilean engineer Igor Bravo, a member of First Baptist Church of Santiago. Bravo realized that though the miners' physical needs were being met, their spiritual needs had been overlooked. So he called his pastor for help. They engaged the support of Radio Harmonia, a Christian broadcasting station in Santiago, which was able to provide MP3 files of pastor Adrian Rogers' sermons and Bible studies in Spanish along with Christian music.

Then Bravo sent down 33 New Testaments, and miner José Henríquez, began leading Bible studies for the miners each evening. The Bible study started out with 5 men and ended with 20 participants. Bravo said the other miners called Henriquez The Pastor. Only three of the 33 trapped miners were evangelical Christians but since that time, two more have made professions of faith in Jesus.

For days, weeks and months to come, news commentators and pundits will be telling the stories of the 33 men who survived 69 days nearly a half-mile below the earth—I am confident a made-for-TV movie is already in the works! Sociologists and psychologists will study them for the next 10 or 20 years, trying to discover what it is in the human psyche that allowed them to survive emotionally and psychologically. But we know the true story—the presence of Jesus illuminated the darkest hours of those miners’ lives.

ARE YOU A “LOSER”?

Since you are a sanctified person, I am sure you never even think about calling someone a “loser.” The Online Dictionary defines loser as “a failure, dud, flop, washout." But speaking as a psychologist, I believe it connotes someone caught up in self-defeating behaviors. Given that, who of us has not felt like a “loser” at times?

One time, a rich young man came to Jesus saying “I have kept the law; is there anything I lack in order to have eternal life?” He was anything but a loser; he was a ‘gainer’—in effect, saying, I have made a lot of gains in righteousness. Is it enough? Am I lacking anything? (Mark 10:20-21)

Jesus’ response must have surprised him. Jesus explains that in God’s economy, gains are losses and losses are gains, saying, ‘you must lose everything you own.’ The young man went away sad because he was rich—his identity was tied to his gains. He could not bring himself to be a “loser.” Jesus has called all His disciples to lose: dare we say to be “losers?”—But NOT defined as those with self-destructive behaviors, but those who willingly lose everything if it means gaining Him.

Paul said “I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus…for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish that I may gain Christ” (Phil. 3:8 NIV).

Some People Keep Their Distance From God

You don’t have to be a psychologist to know that when people are hurt, they “distance” themselves from the one who hurt them. It’s the safest way not to be hurt again!

Unfortunately, when people misunderstand God’s work in their lives, they feel hurt and want to distance themselves from Him too. In Jeremiah 2:5 God says: “What injustice did your fathers find in Me that they went far away [distanced themselves] from me?”

No one knows the Father’s heart like Jesus. And Jesus tells us God is like a gardener pruning a vine—cutting away “natural” growth, SELF LIFE that is keeping HIS LIFE from producing more fruit. In employing this analogy—pruning/cutting—in John 15, Jesus also uses the word “abide.” That the branch must abide in the vine seems self-evident, doesn’t it!

The significance is this: ABIDING is the opposite of DISTANCING. Jesus is saying when the Father is cutting away your self-life, it may hurt. And your reaction may be to ‘move away’ or detach yourself from Him: stay connected to Me—“abide,” He says. Image a branch trying to detach itself from the vine! And it is just as absurd to distance ourselves from God. If we detach or disconnect from Him, we disconnect from the source of life, and can bear no fruit. And worse, we will whither.

I saw a bumper sticker one time that read: “If you feel far away from God, guess who moved?”

Even the Cutest Baby Stinks If He's Not Changed

Question: How many psychologists does it take to change a light bulb?
Answer: Only one, but the light bulb has to really want to change!

Psychologists have long been puzzled at human resistance to change—why does a child of an alcoholic grow up to marry an alcoholic? Rick Joyner calls it the TYRANNY OF THE FAMILIAR! For us who profess Christ as Lord, we are being conformed to His image; so we have a lot of changing to do!

There is a warning in Jeremiah 48:11 about failure to change. Moab has been at ease from his youth; He has settled on his dregs; and has not been emptied from vessel to vessel…therefore his taste remained in him, and his scent has not changed.
In ancient times, wine was improved by pouring it from vessel to vessel to purge it of dregs. Moab is pictured as unpoured wine -- settled and at ease, refusing to change. But he is stagnated—he smells awful. Pouring is a metaphor for change. As God’s child, you must be ‘poured’ from one experience to the next to reach maturity until you are FILLED to fullness with Christ’s life (see Colossians 2:9-10).

As you are EMPTIED of your ‘self’ and FILLED with Christ, you become a sweet aroma (2 Cor. 2:14). If you are feeling frustrated, depressed or anxious today, you probably aren’t emanating a very pleasant fragrance to those around you. The question is: WHAT NEEDS TO CHANGE?