Consider This:
What if the God we trust most
is the one we've created in our own minds?

This week, I had the privilege of hearing retired Army Ranger Jeff Struecker speak at the Tampa Bay Leadership Prayer Breakfast hosted by CBMC. Jeff played a significant role in the Battle of Mogadishu that was the subject of the movie Black Hawk Down.

He used a common Army Ranger experience to illustrate the kind of faith that defines Jesus’ followers as his disciples: a parachute.

We can know everything about parachutes:

• The difference between a drag parachute and one that we can steer.

• How to fold and pack a parachute properly.

• How it feels to wear a parachute on our backs all day long.

We can know all there is to know about a parachute—all of which is helpful (and in some cases essential) knowledge. But until we jump out of a plane and trust the parachute to save us, all our knowledge remains theoretical. We don’t fully and intimately know the parachute.

And more pointedly, we don’t actually trust it.

The Shortcut

What Jeff illustrated highlights the difference between rational knowledge about God and intuitive knowledge of him—and the difference is profound.

I addressed this in my last article, where I gave a frank warning:

The great danger facing the church is that we substitute rational knowledge for intuitive knowledge. In other words,

We think that knowing ABOUT God
is the same as KNOWING God.

And while we might rationally deny we believe this, our behavior and thinking habits indicate otherwise. Like our society as a whole, we have unknowingly fallen into the trap of leaning more on rational understanding than intuitive [understanding].

Here’s the article if you want the full context…

There are a lot of moving parts here—including how our brains process information and how our culture has increasingly prioritized explicit, analytical knowledge over relational and experiential understanding. But the main point is pretty simple:

We trust in what we
most frequently think about—
and how we think about it.

This is the essence of Jesus’ teaching about the “eye”—biblically, the center of our perception: What we regard as trustworthy shapes what we pursue and how we live.

The eye is the lamp of the body; so then, if your eye is clear, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. So if the light that is in you is darkness, how great is the darkness!
Mt. 6.22-23

What we choose to “see” and how we choose to “see” it (our mindset) will lead our hearts either toward God or away from him.

Our rational knowledge ABOUT God—which includes our theology, doctrines, traditions and creeds—is explicit, concrete and clear. It feels more concrete than our intuitive knowledge OF God, which is relational, fluid, contextual, ambiguous, paradoxical, open-ended … anything but explicit, concrete and clear.

And more concrete = more trustworthy—or so it appears.

It’s not about rational knowledge being unreliable or unnecessary, it’s about how we engage with it. Our grave danger is that we actively trust the theology, doctrines, traditions and creeds we’ve created about God, more than we actively trust God himself.

We use our rational knowledge as a shortcut to faith. Since our theology, doctrines, traditions and creeds are God-related, it’s easy to “see” that trusting them is the same as trusting God.

It is not.

Trusting them is like trusting our parachute knowledge, which doesn’t actually require any faith.

Trusting God—relationally, experientially—is like trusting our parachute, which won’t happen without faith.1

As If That Weren’t Bad Enough …

There’s an even more sinister danger lurking in the mix: Our rational knowledge about God can quickly become the framework for relating to him.

Our frameworks can become the lens we look through to “see” God and our reality. They can generate false expectations about God that reshape our very perception of him.2

From here, it’s a rapid descent into the realm of dictating who God should be. In other words, we take on a role only God is suited for, and God becomes that which we shape to suit our needs and desires.

This is where the image of the potter and the clay becomes relevant.

Read more

Consider This:
We can know a great deal ABOUT someone
without really KNOWING them.

How do we come to “know” what we know about God?

Usually, we think of “knowing” as acquired information: the facts, processes and words describing the things in our lives. For example, we “know” …

• Our email address and phone number.

• That 2+2=4.

• What day of the week it will be tomorrow.

This is RATIONAL knowledge. It’s usually informational, and it fits well into sequence, order and analysis. It’s concrete and well-defined, giving us certainty and clarity. Rational knowledge “checks a box” in our thinking, providing a sense of closure and arrival. It also has practical utility: We can use it to accomplish what we have in mind.

Rational knowledge is like
the hiking map.

A second—and very different—way of “knowing” is INTUITIVE knowledge. It’s deep and resonant. For example, we “know” …

• Our dog thinks we’re the most important human in the world.

• How small we are after staring at an amazing sunset or experiencing the awe of seeing the Grand Canyon for the first time.

• We’re in love—and whether (or not) we are being loved.

THAT we know intuitively is evident, but HOW we know intuitively is not. Intuitive knowledge often has an experiential component, but it’s more than just having an experience. We can’t easily put this knowledge into words—and often it’s paradoxical or open to interpretation. It has a timeless, infinite quality—like it hasn’t yet “arrived” … and it doesn’t really want to.

Intuitive knowledge is like
the hiking experience.

Interestingly, rational and intuitive knowledge align closely with how our brains work. The right hemisphere tends to see things broadly, contextually and relationally, while the left hemisphere tends to see details, categories and explanations.

Meaning: God designed us so that we’d practice both ways of knowing. The question is, in our thinking habits:

Are we knowing
the way God designed us to?

Knowing in the New Testament

We can see this intuitive/rational distinction in two Greek words used in the New Testament: eidō (pronounced EYE-doh) and ginōskō (gi-NOH-skoh).1

Eidō reflects rational thinking: consciously recognizing, acknowledging or possessing clear understanding. For example:

• “We do not know what we ought to pray for” (Rom. 8.26) — The Spirit intercedes for us when we don’t have specific knowledge to voice in prayer.

• “Keep watch, because you do not know on what day your Lord will come.” (Mt. 24.42) — Only the Father explicitly knows the exact day of Jesus’ return.

• “When you did not know God, you were slaves to those who by nature are not gods” (Gal. 4.8) — Before coming to faith, the Galatians had no clear knowledge of God.

Conversely, ginōskō reflects intuitive thinking: knowing through experience in ways that can’t be explained or contained. For example:

• “I am the good shepherd; I know my sheep and my sheep know me” (Jn. 10.14) — Jesus’ flock has spent intimate relational time with him through a variety of circumstances, and has come to trust him.

• “We have come to believe and to know that you are the Holy One of God” (Jn. 6.69) — Peter’s knowledge of Jesus’ identity was based on his eye-witness relationship with him and his ministry.

• “I want to know Christ—the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings …” (Phil. 3.10) — Paul desired more than cognitive information about Jesus, he wanted the fullest and most intimate relationship with him.

Substitute Knowledge

The great danger facing the church is that we substitute rational knowledge (eidō) for intuitive knowledge (ginōskō). In other words,

We think that knowing ABOUT God
is the same as KNOWING God.

And while we might rationally deny we believe this, our behavior and thinking habits indicate otherwise. Like our society as a whole, we have unknowingly fallen into the trap of leaning more on rational understanding than intuitive.

Consider how our rational knowledge about God …

• Is clear, organized, defined and certain.

• Is so highly accessible and consumable.

• Is available on demand, at the time, place and manner of our choosing.

It’s easy to embrace the mindset that God can be … described.

It’s convenient to worship a God
we’ve reduced to what we can define.

When we do worship this definable God, we make rational knowledge the focus of our attention. We create frameworks to relate to God.

This is where it starts getting wonky.

Down the Rabbit Hole We Go

Our rationally-based frameworks become real and tangible—trustworthy. We assume that because they are God-oriented, trusting them is equivalent to trusting God himself. We start leaning on them when we could (and should) be trusting God (see Prov. 3.5-6).

We look for resources that align with our frameworks. We listen to the influencers that support the priorities of our frameworks—creating an echo chamber of sorts built from our framework.

As if that weren’t dangerous enough, we develop a sense of control over our frameworks. We dictate their boundaries and scope. We determine how to apply the knowledge we gain. We start measuring ourselves (and each other) by how well we apply our rational knowledge.

Ultimately, we expect God to operate within our frameworks—rather than us operating within his.

The digression is subtle. What we intended as a tool to help us understand God becomes the lens through which we see him.

Instead of God shaping our understanding,
our understanding shapes God.

The biblical description of this rabbit-hole of thinking—putting our trust in the God-things we control—is, soberingly, idolatry. It’s our own golden calf:

“These are your gods, Israel, who brought you up out of Egypt.”
(Exod. 32.4)

Just to be clear: Having rational frameworks that explain God isn’t the problem. After all, some frameworks are necessary to live an obedient life of faith.

The problem comes when we don’t know how to use them according to how God designed us to know.

God’s Design for Knowing

In short, this comes down to two foundational principles:

1. We need both intuitive and rational knowledge.

2. Intuitive knowledge provides the context and meaning for rational knowledge.

Imagine hiking in an area you’ve never been before. Rational knowledge is like your hiking map, and intuitive knowledge is like the activity of hiking.

The map orients you to the terrain, hills, trees and meadows. It keeps you from getting lost or overwhelmed. But the map can only represent reality; it’s not the reality itself. It can’t provide what the interaction with reality can.

At the same time, hiking without orientation in unfamiliar surroundings can be exasperating. The trail you’re walking on can give some insight on where to go, but it can’t provide the definition the map does.

Knowing rationally and intuitively are both necessary, but they’re necessary in different and opposing ways:

They function as a dyad, each relying on the other to achieve fullness of their knowledge potential—and each is incomplete without the other.

Intuitive knowledge connects us to the reality beyond ourselves (including God and other people). Not just knowing about this reality, but actually knowing it.2 This includes comprehending that we are known by someone outside ourselves—an experience so vital that without it we can’t flourish and may not even survive.3

Rational knowledge connects us to living in our reality. It makes our intuitive knowledge tangible and executable. It allows us to interact with and influence our environment and the relationships in it.4

So …

• Without rational knowledge, intuitive knowledge is nonsensically mysterious.
  It lacks organization, correlation and application.

• Without intuitive knowledge, rational knowledge is lifelessly void of meaning.
  It’s colorless and flat. It’s fragmented … it won’t integrate into a coherent whole.

God uses both—but HOW he uses both is important to grasp. As a general principle, knowledge of God comes initially intuitively (and unconsciously), and is then rationally (consciously) refined, clarified, specified and grasped.5

This makes the sequence of our thinking habits significant:

1. Seek God, relate to him, trust and know him first intuitively, then …

2. Let that experience become the compass, the unifying factor, the lens for building rational knowledge about him.

The Either-Or Trap

As I’ve talked about knowing intuitively and rationally, the responses I get reveal a tendency to see this topic from a binary perspective. In other words,

instead of thinking
intuitive “AND” rational knowledge,
we think
intuitive “VERSES” rational knowledge.

We struggle to see them as integrated, and so move toward prioritizing one over the other. I frequently hear some version of responses like:

“I hear what you’re saying about intuitive thinking, but we have to maintain the authority and truth of God’s word.”

Or from the other perspective:

“Yes! We just need to let go and let God.”

This polarization reflects what might be our biggest hurdle: Trusting in an integrated approach to knowing. Knowing intuitively and knowing rationally are in no way exclusive of each other—no more than the Jesus is exclusive of the Father or the Spirit is exclusive of Jesus.

That either-or tension you may be sensing is an indication of how far Western thinking patterns have drifted over the hundreds of years of its existence … and how it’s impacted the way the church “knows” God.

So What?

Perhaps the best place to begin is to move into a season where we dedicate ourselves to the practice of hearing God. I have two things I would offer as starting points.

First is a previous article (and the follow-up articles) on hearing God. Here’s a link to it:

Second, I’ve created content for an interactive, 3-session, online group cohort that walks through reorienting our thinking and establishing the new habits around hearing God as a life practice and discipline. Please DM me to learn more.

Peace be with you …

Agree? Disagree?
I’m eager to know your thoughts and
kick this content around with you.
Leave a comment or message me to discuss.

Leave a comment

Follow2Lead is a reader-supported
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becoming a paid subscriber to receive
additional insights and to support
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Footnotes

Recently, I was looking through some unfinished article drafts and found this one from January 2025. Though dated from a current-events perspective, the issues are still relevant—because they’re timeless.

If the people and events seem stale, I invite you to look around and substitute them with current examples … you won’t have to search too hard to find them.

Perhaps you can even start—as I did—by looking in the mirror.

- dg

If you’ve read any of my content, you’re aware that I talk about identity.

A lot.

Whether or not it’s too much is perhaps a matter of opinion.

But it’s hard to argue against the reality that “Who am I?” is the most frequently asked question in all of humanity.

It is, after all,
the most profound question
we could ever ask;
the most human question.

Sometimes we ask it out loud. But usually we ask it unawares … unconsciously, in the depths of our soul. That this is true for all of us is self-evident.

We don’t have to look far to see real life examples.

For Example

In recent months, I discovered that each of the three people listed in the title—Demi Moore, Aaron Rodgers and Taylor Swift—have revealed aspects of their identity search.

Demi Moore

She recently won a Golden Globe award for best female actress for her portrayal of the main character in the movie, The Substance. In her moving acceptance speech, she stated how particularly important the award was for her. She recalled how a producer in her past labeled her a “popcorn actress”—a label she unfortunately took to heart and let define her for years. She followed up by saying,

“When I finally took myself seriously, other people started responding.”

Aaron Rodgers

Rodgers opened up about his struggle with identity in the documentary on his life, Enigma. The show details the journey from playing high school ball, to the awkward role of backup quarterback in the NFL to Brett Favre, to winning the starting job and working to improve his craft enough to win the Super Bowl.

After accomplishing the goal he’d had since high school, it suddenly hit him:

“Is this it?!? Now what? Who am I supposed to be now?”

The rest of the show details his attempts to answer that question. And the show’s title—along with his well-documented activities since that first Super Bowl win—give an indication of how far he’s gone in that search.

Taylor Swift

Taylor Swift might be the most recognizable person on the planet today. She’s had to deal with celebrity status at levels very few others in human history ever have.

She’s been transparent and frank about her challenges surrounding identity. It was a central theme in the 2020 documentary, Miss Americana, where she revealed how she came to define her worth through public approval, commercial success and the need to continually recreate herself to remain relevant. She laments …

“… constantly having to reinvent, constantly finding new facets of yourself that people find to be shiny.”

Perhaps most telling, she voices an emotion most of us share but few of us can ever put into words:

“I wish I didn’t feel like there’s a better version of me out there.”

Calling It What It Is: Coping

If you look at these high-profile people, it’s easy to see that their stories are actually quite common. Their journeys are more public-facing and complex, but the core mechanics are the same.

I’ve seen a curious pattern we all exhibit:

We’re open to discussing
the efforts we expend
toward finding our identity,
but we avoid discussing
who we actually are to begin with.

It’s almost as if we’re afraid to explore the topic of identity—like we’re ashamed of what we might find if we do.

So we cope by telling ourselves that the topic of identity is too ethereal and ill-defined, and instead we put our effort toward trying to make something of ourselves. We form our identity around performing well in whatever profession, role or activity we find ourselves in—including how we practice our faith.1

A New Perspective

We have to back up far enough to recognize that what feels like a good approach is actually a coping mechanism. We need to experience an Overview Effect, like the one astronauts have after they go into orbit for the first time and see Earth as it really is. Their perspective on life becomes permanently and irreversibly transformed.

For some background—and the bigger picture—check out …

There’s a reason this attempt to ‘make something of ourselves’ feels like the hamster-wheel experience it is:

We don’t actually HAVE the capacity
to generate our own identity.
We can no more
generate our own identity
than we can
generate our own righteousness.

Though it feels like we do (and like we should), we can’t form our own identity—no matter how hard we try. That’s because God created us so that we wouldn’t ever have to. He designed us to receive all identity, meaning, purpose and passion from him.

I love the way Richard Lints describes this:

“People, who are created as divine image bearers, are also capable of reflecting the created order. Thus humans may be said to have a reflective identity. In some sense they find meaning outside themselves by virtue of what they reflect.” (emphasis mine)2

Said another way, we have two choices about our identity:

1. We’ll receive it from God, or

2. We’ll receive it from other people, the world, the flesh or the enemy.

Either way, we are the receivers of our identity, not the creators of it. God alone is our identity creator.

Almost Like Jesus

Each of us is a unique reflection of God, created to do wonderful things that God himself invites us into because he intends to use us to accomplish his purposes (Eph. 2.10). But we do these things as a response, not as a means of trying to generate an identity on our own.

Imagine doing everything we do—raising kids, being an accountant, making disciples, creating things, excelling at being the best versions of ourselves—as a response to what we’ve received from God, rather than as a self-motivated attempt to convince ourselves, appeal to others or win God’s approval?

• Imagine never creating strategy out of our own initiative.

• Imagine never setting our own goals.

• What if we put all our focus on abiding, hearing God and following the leading of the Holy Spirit to do everything we do?

We’d almost look like Jesus, who openly and freely admitted operating in complete dependence:

“…the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does.”
Jn. 5.19

Don’t Be Intimidated, Just Believe

I get it: It’s intimidating to look at yourself in the mirror and embrace the reality that you’re totally dependent. After all, it feels vulnerable and weak.

It sounds a lot like
the very thing you’ve been avoiding,
that great unspoken fear:
That I’m nothing … I’m nobody.

So making something of ourselves feels like a proactive alternative. But it’s actually just a frustrating hamster wheel that—ironically—legitimizes the very fear we’re trying to avoid.

The truth we must trust is that being totally dependent upon God is the most secure, peaceful, content and fulfilling place we could ever hope for.

It is God’s design for our lives.

It requires, obviously, that we believe that God is capable and willing to give us our identity, meaning, purpose and passion, and to do so consistently enough for us to live, move and have our being in him.

And this “belief” can’t just be a rational, theological position we acknowledge. We have to trust it, functionally and fully.

It also requires that we refuse to accept the accusation of the enemy whose sole purpose is to convince us of the lie that we’re nothing … we’re nobody.

That’s the narrow way forward.

Are you willing to walk this path, and un-make something of yourself?

Peace be with you …

Agree? Disagree?
I’m eager to know your thoughts and
kick this content around with you.
Leave a comment or message me to discuss.

Leave a comment

Follow2Lead is a reader-supported
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to receive new posts. But please consider
becoming a paid subscriber to receive
additional insights and to support
my service to the church. Thanks!

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Footnotes:

Consider This:
How do you practice a way of thinking
you’ve spent a lifetime learning to ignore?

In my last three articles on How God Designed Us to Think, I explained how God’s design for our mind and brain lets us relate with him in the same way he’s relating with us.

The last article (Part 3) rolls up all theses features into what I call a thought Flow:

Using this Flow allows us to interact with truth and develop understanding at levels far deeper than just acquiring more information.

Here’s the article describing the Flow …

Setting the Context for the Flow

It’s important for Western followers of Jesus to understand that this Flow is experiential—phenomenological.1 By that, I mean

we begin consciously experiencing
something that has been
happening all along.

We become aware of intuitive processing in ways we haven’t previously noticed. Because we’re so accustomed to rational thinking, intuitive thinking can feel like new and unfamiliar territory.

To help navigate what might feel off the edge of your map, I wanted to provide some practical applications and examples—signposts to watch for and respond to as you begin to think with the mind of Christ.

Note: This is a paid-subscriber follow-up
to a previous article.
Subscribe if you want to have access to
this article (and future articles like it).

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Read more

Consider This:
How should we expect to hear God
using the same thinking habits the world does?

This is a wrap-up of a 3-part series on how God designed us to think so that (among other things) we can hear him more effectively.

Perhaps the biggest barrier
to hearing God is assuming that
our minds are prepared to hear him.

We should consider that, most likely, they aren’t. There’s a lot of transformation required to perceive him truthfully and receive what he’s saying to us.

Unfortunately, much of the church in the West hasn’t been relating to God in the same way he’s relating to us. We’ve centered our faith practices on WHAT we should think— ignoring the far more important discipline: HOW we should think.

That’s what this three-part article addresses.

In Part 1 of How God Designed Us to Think, I introduced four aspects of thinking:

• 2 Realms — The Mind (the spiritual realm) and the Brain (the physical realm).

• 2 Domains — The Rational (largely served by our brains’ left hemisphere) and the Intuitive (served by the right).

• 3 Phases — Distinct perspectives of thinking both rationally and intuitively.

• 1 Flow — An integrated thought process that partners with the Holy Spirit.

Part 1 unpacked the 2 Realms and the 2 Domains, and Part 2 covered the 3 Phases. This article rolls everything up into the 1 Flow.

Here are the links to Part 1 and Part 2 …

1 Flow of Thought

This flow is the aggregation of thinking in …

• The 2 Realms — The spiritual and the physical

• The 2 Domains — The intuitive and the rational

• The 3 Phases — The integrated movements of 1) Reflecting, 2) Recognizing-Receiving-Responding, and 3) Reintegrating.

As these ways of thinking become integrated, they operate as a single flow—a kind of operating system for how we experience and process reality.

This isn’t a methodology,
it’s a way to experience living.

The Flow describes the phenomenon of experiencing truth and understanding—what happens in our mind and brain as we interact with God. In other words, it’s what we sense, how we sense it, how we interpret meaning and how it impacts our perception of reality.

This is God’s design for our brains to experience ongoing renewal that transforms us spiritually. The flow moves cyclically, from …

Here’s a summary of how we experience the flow as thoughts are …

1. REVEALED. Thoughts and new revelation come into our mind—most of which will be initially unconscious to us at first. So revealed here doesn't mean consciously recognized. Many things enter our mind and begin affecting us before we consciously perceive it.

2. PRESENTED. Thoughts and new revelation move from unconscious to conscious awareness. They’re usually intuitive and not well-structured, and will challenge our current understanding. We often struggle to find language to sufficiently describe them.

3. RECEIVED. The new thoughts get viewed through the lens of our existing paradigms and knowledge. If we dismiss them or tag them as already known, the flow stops. So receiving new thoughts is intentional engagement, training ourselves to be sensitive and receptive.

4. ANALYZED and APPLIED. We begin analyzing the new thoughts and how they fit (or don’t fit) into our current understanding. Language gets applied as we describe them and determine how to apply them. At this point, we “apprehend” the new thoughts (including recognizing there’s more we don’t know).

5. REINTEGRATED. We now have two alternatives:
   1) View our new knowledge as finished and complete, or
   2) Remain curious and open, seeing it as a seed that will bear deeper understanding.
   The second choice releases analyzed knowledge to the larger field of experience.

6. INCORPORATED. The new knowledge is infused into the broader context of our life with God and perception of reality, which is how we develop wisdom. Though much of this occurs at the unconscious level, it spawns new insights and the flow continues.

Because the last two parts involve unconscious processing, Westerners tend to dismiss them as nebulous, ethereal and impractical.

But it’s actually where
the heavy lifting of
renewing our mind occurs.

So we must be intentional about shaping and renewing our unconscious thinking. This will be a step of faith for Western believers, who are accustomed to trusting conscious thoughts that are concrete, certain and “visible.”1

This involves faith. After all, we’re partnering with the Spirit in unconscious thought processes we cannot “see.” This is “being sure of what we hope for, being convinced of what we do not see” (Heb. 11.1 NET).

Why the 1 Flow Matters

This flow is how we come to “know” and “understand” spiritual truth for what it is.2

It is how we come to
know and experience God
—and the fullness of the gospel—
the way he intends.

Interestingly, there is a wide spectrum of Greek words used in the Bible to describe the act of “knowing” and “understanding.”3 Two of them are eidō and ginōskō, whose meanings reveal very different shades of knowing.

1. Eidō — “Knowing by observation”—clear mental perception. This is part of apprehending: explicit, rational knowledge that’s been intellectually grasped and recognized. We see it in John 13.1, where Jesus “knew” (eidō) that the hour had come for him to be crucified. Today we might ask, “Do you see what I mean?”

2. Ginōskō — “Knowing by participation”—full, contextualized understanding gained through encounter and experience. This is part of comprehending: implicit, intuitive understanding that often defies description. We see it in Philippians 3.7-11, where Paul wanted to “know” (ginōskō) Jesus and experience Jesus’ death and resurrection for himself. Today we might ask, “Do you feel me?”

We need both eidō and ginōskō. Both are healthy, complementary and necessary. But without this flow, our experience of knowing at both levels will be severely limited.

Thinking Correctly in the 1 Flow

Expanding this more, watch some of the ways Scripture describes knowing and understanding in relation to the flow.

1. REVEALED — “He made known to us the mystery of his will” (Eph. 1.9). “Made known” = gnōrizō: “to certify or declare,” and “to disclose.” As a form of ginōskō, it carries the same experiential knowledge connotations.

2. PRESENTED — “I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened” (Eph. 1.18). “Enlightened” = phōtizō: “to bring to light, to render evident.” Enlightening causes something to exist in our consciousness that wasn’t previously there (e.g. “the light bulb came on”).

3. RECEIVED — "I pray … that you may … grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ" (Eph. 3.17-18). “Grasp” = katalambanō: “to lay hold of.” It is grasping thoughts concretely so that they become useful (e.g. “I get what you’re saying,” “Do you get it?”).

4. ANALYZED & APPLIED — “But whatever were gains to me I now consider loss for the sake of Christ” (Phil. 3.7). “Consider” = hēgeomai: judgments, decisions or evaluations resulting from analysis and consideration of available facts.4

5. REINTEGRATED — “By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God’s command” (Heb. 11.3). “Understand” = noeō: “to direct one’s mind toward; to think upon, heed, ponder or consider.” It’s using a known idea to explore for more understanding and imagination.

6. INCORPORATED — “Then he opened their minds so they could understand the Scriptures" (Lk. 24.45). “Understand” = syniemi: literally, “to send together.” It’s the outcome of the reintegration process, fusing understanding into our broader comprehension. It produces coherence, like the concepts of synthesizing or “connecting the dots.”

The point with all this is simple: Knowing God is far more than acknowledging information about him. The more we learn to know him experientially and intimately, the more we will be able to abide in Christ.

Context for God’s Thinking Design

As a thought exercise, take a season and objectively observe what you see in the world: what it’s talking about, and how it’s talking about it. Then—working from the assumption that our doing is the outcome of our thinking—look deeper into the world’s priorities and behaviors:

• What does it aspire to be?

• What does it consider to be “real?”

• What brings coherence to life?

• How does it describe love, peace and joy—and how to get them?

Then ask yourself, “What kind of thinking process would produce what I see?”

SPOILER ALERT: It won’t resemble the flow described above.

A Christianized conclusion would judge that the world doesn’t think with the God-designed flow because it doesn’t have Jesus.

Technically, that’s not wrong. But there’s a far more profound reality to consider: To a large degree,

the world doesn’t have Jesus
because it doesn’t think
with the God-designed flow.

And herein lies our greatest danger.

We would do well to recognize how deeply the church in the West has adopted Western secular thinking processes, Christianizing and repurposing them for our modern religious practices. It’s happened gradually, over many centuries … so it’s not surprising that we haven’t noticed.

But it’s time we notice. And repent.

The Greek word for “repent” is metanoeō, a combination of meta and noeō—the same noeō we saw above in 5. REINTEGRATED. Repentance involves a changed mind, a changed perception—a fundamentally different way of seeing.

The world’s way of thinking won’t lead us to the kingdom or to deeper, abiding faith in God. It won’t bring peace. We won’t experience the joy from God being in us and us being in him.

It will only increase our spiritual blindness.

What version of Jesus will we then have to offer the world? What will our disciple-making become?

Selah.

I am praying for you. Peace be with you …

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Footnotes:

Consider This:
Some of the most important thoughts
you need to hear
are the ones you don’t realize
you’re ignoring.

I’m currently in a series of articles dealing with the topic of hearing God. It’s easy to assume that we hear God with thinking processes that are neutrally calibrated and receptive to him.

But unfortunately, that’s very much NOT the case.

There are numerous ways our thinking habits have become misaligned with the ways God relates to us. So we must become good stewards of our thinking processes. We need a practical, big-picture perspective not on WHAT we think, but HOW we think.

In Part 1 of How God Designed Us to Think, I introduced four aspects of thinking that we can manage more effectively. They are:

• 2 Realms — The Mind (the spiritual realm) and the Brain (the physical realm).

• 2 Domains — The Rational (largely served by our brains’ left hemisphere) and the Intuitive (served by the right).

• 3 Phases — Distinct perspectives on thoughts in the 2 Domains.

• 1 Flow — A seamless and integrated practice that partners with the Holy Spirit.

Here’s the link to Part 1 if you want to refresh …

Part 1 unpacked the 2 Realms and the 2 Domains. In this article, I’ll cover the 3 Phases, and the next article will put everything together in describing 1 Flow.

Also, a point I made in Part 1 bears repeating: Avoid the temptation to oversimplify this. Current thinking habits in the West look at 2 Realms + 2 Domains + 3 Phases + 1 Flow as a way to deconstruct human thinking into its irreducible components.

Human thought processes are dynamic, complex and uniquely personal to each of us. So it’s important that this 2+2+3+1 be viewed as a way to

see general patterns and principles
in the beautifully integrated
and complex whole
that is our human existence.

Agreed?

Okay, let’s get into the next pattern …

3 PHASES of Thinking

These aren't three different kinds of thinking so much as three movements within an integrated thinking process. The combination of the 3 Phases is a purposeful approach that leverages our brain’s hemispheres (i.e. the 2 Domains from Part 1) to intentionally invite God into our thinking to produce deeper understanding and wisdom.

Each phase is highly dependent on the other two. Meaning:

The synergy of all three
working in combination
dramatically impacts our overall
comprehension and understanding.

They help ensure our thought processes are integrated, holistic and coherent.

1 - Reflect

I see reflection as “assessing without evaluating.” It asks, “What do I notice?” The goal is extended and impartial observation—not judgment or evaluation. It creates space for things our normal analytical thinking may overlook. It lets you notice your thoughts rather than be driven by them.

It intentionally gives more of the microphone to the right hemisphere, allowing it to speak to what it’s been paying attention to. The right hemisphere is particularly attuned to the broad perspective and deeper, more connected insights, so it can expose thoughts worthy of deeper exploration.

2 - Recognize-Receive-Respond

Reflection “presents” right-hemisphere thoughts to the left hemisphere. But they don’t arrive as organized, ready-to-use packages of information. Instead, they could be any combination of things like …

• Emotions (fear, peace, judgment, jealousy, longings, etc.).

• Memories.

• Out-of-the-blue ideas.

• Images.

• Motivations.

• Bible verses.

• Conscience-related thoughts (having a moral component).

• Accusations (“what a stupid idea,” “you’re all alone”).

• Affirmations (“you’re my child,” “I know you”).

This phase is itself a three-step sequence:

1. Recognize. “This thought/emotion/image is present.”

2. Receive. “I will allow it to remain present rather than immediately dismissing, suppressing or judging it.”

3. Respond. “I will evaluate what it means and what, if anything, I should do with it.”

This three-step sequence interrupts the left hemisphere’s natural, impulsive tendency to …

1. Ignore the thoughts from the right hemisphere, and

2. Dismiss them as distracting, insignificant or without value.

These steps allow the left hemisphere to do what it does best: Evaluate, organize and describe the thought and consider how to apply it.

3 - Reintegrate

In my opinion, the last phase is the most important for believers in a Western context.

It’s a lost skill.
As a society, we’ve largely
forgotten how to do it.

Reintegration is the intentional, left-hemispherical step of releasing a thought back into the right hemisphere for more orientation and context. This is where the previous illustration of the forest and the tree makes sense…

The right hemisphere “sees the forest” of our reality, and the left hemisphere “sees the tree.” Reintegration takes the knowledge gained from analyzing the tree, and puts it back into the forest. This allows the right hemisphere to leverage this new information to further comprehend the forest.

Practically, this might look something like this:

Reintegration is a vital step, because on its own the left hemisphere tends to “stand pat” with its current knowledge. It must be trained to stay humble, curious and hungry to learn.1

Follow2Lead is a reader-supported
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›my service to the church. Thanks!

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Why the 3 Phases Matter

As a reminder, the right hemisphere pays global attention and is more in tune with our unconscious thoughts than the left. So (using the car and driver metaphor from the Part 1 article),

NOT using the 3 Phases means that
our left hemisphere is
driving most of our thoughts,
while the right hemisphere
sits in a parking lot.

For more details on the differences between the hemispheres, read the section Two Sides to the Brain’s Story in this article …

This has some significant consequences:

• We don’t develop wisdom. The left hemisphere is prone to both over-prioritize what it knows and to under-estimate what it doesn’t know. While it’s fantastic at rational data and information, that knowledge has much less value when we don’t know how it all fits together in a coherent whole.

• We struggle to hear God. Part of the reason we don’t hear God is that we simply don’t allow space in our thinking to allow him to speak. I believe the right hemisphere is particularly important in our receptivity to spiritual truth, revelation and interaction with the Holy Spirit.2

• We over-prioritize strategy, activity and achievement. We live from a productivity orientation to life. We have clarity about what we should DO, but who we should BE remains vague and elusive.

• We detach from emotions—particularly fear. We avoid processing fear-based thoughts, using coping mechanisms to stuff, explain away or deflect them for fear of what we might discover.

• We live from our old, independent identity. When not integrated with the right hemisphere, the left hemisphere prioritizes certainty and control. This eventually drives us toward a posture of independence from God.

Thinking Correctly in the 3 Phases

The How-To’s

Pick Your Time. Set aside intentional, daily time for reflecting. Pick a time you can practice consistently (ex: end of day), where you’re undistracted, not multitasking and are fresh enough to think clearly.

10 minutes is often sufficient (as long as you do it every day). It’s actually more effective to do shorter times of reflection multiple times per day.

Keep the Goal in Mind. The goal is to pull yourself out of your usual thinking habits to be still and present with God. It may feel awkward or forced in the beginning—so don’t be discouraged.

It’s not a race, or a performance. It’s about gradually learning a new habit. Your physical brain needs the time to develop the neural network to support your new thought habits.

Make it Yours. If you want to journal your reflections, go for it. If that would distract you, then don’t. Light candles. Go on a walk. Sit quietly or listen to meditative music. Whatever you choose to do (or not do), let it fit you and your needs.

It’s not about a method—
which will morph over time anyway.

Don’t Rush the Middle. When something surfaces consciously in Phase 2, resist the impulse to immediately explain, judge or act on it. First recognize that it's there. Receive it without assuming it's true. Then respond by exploring where it came from, whether it aligns with truth and what it might be revealing.

Reintegrate with Questions. When you get to Phase 3, ask God open-ended questions, like: “What do I need to understand about this?” “What does this impact?” or “How’s this different from what I understood before?” Let the Holy Spirit instruct you and reveal things to your mind.

If you’re a fan of Jamie and Donna Winship’s teaching, you’ll recognize their two recommended questions that stimulate Reintegration: “What do you want me to know?” and “What do you want me to do?”

The Watch-Fors

You’ll probably become aware of thoughts you may not have noticed before. Don’t assume that everything you notice is from God. The enemy can also exploit this space, and some thoughts simply arise from our own beliefs, memories and habitual patterns.

You’ll also probably notice fear-based thoughts (“Take control of this situation,” “You’re going to run out of money,” “Protect your reputation,” etc.). This is absolutely, 100% normal.

While that may sound depressing, the thoughts you’re now noticing have always been there, influencing your behavior and decisions … you just didn’t know it.

Now, you are putting yourself in position to manage them, “taking every thought captive and making it obedient to Christ” (2 Cor. 10.5 NASB). After all,

You can’t take any thought captive
and make it obedient to Christ
if you don’t know it exists.

Neglecting these movements will make our thinking, to some degree, futile. It will be far more difficult to differentiate wisdom from folly, right from wrong and the voice of the Spirit from the voice of the enemy.

Eventually, through practice, the whole 3 Phase process becomes organic. You won’t have to schedule time for it. It becomes integrated into your normal thinking pattern, where it’s actively operating in your mind as you move throughout the day.

In other words, your thinking takes on the 1 Flow that I’ll describe in the next article.

Peace be with you …

Agree? Disagree?
I’m eager to know your thoughts and
kick this content around with you.
Leave a comment or message me to discuss.

Leave a comment

Footnotes

Consider This:
We spend a lot of time focusing on
WHAT we think.
It’s time we focus on
HOW we think.

When it comes to thinking, the Bible has one overarching meta-message:

We are called to be
good stewards of our thinking.

Stewarding our thinking isn’t just managing what we think, it’s managing how we think. Thinking only good thoughts or learning more information about God isn’t helpful if we’re relying on unhealthy approaches to process it all.

Stewarding our thinking is about understanding the things that shape our perception of God, ourselves and the reality we live in. It’s about practicing the disciplines that allow for wisdom to take root and flourish.

We are called to think the way God thinks—having the mind of Christ—so that we can relate to God the way he relates to us.

The Impact of Not Stewarding

If we don’t steward our thinking well, we set ourselves up for frustration and anxiety. Poor thinking habits interfere with hearing God.

For example, think of Jesus’ teaching not to worry (Mt. 6.25-34). Jesus made it a command because worry reinforces a false belief about God. Specifically, that God is unwilling and/or unable to provide for our needs.

But how can we eliminate worry if we approach it as a task to complete—without addressing the thinking that actually created the worry?

How should we expect to hear God if we actively hold on to a way of thinking that believes he’s not who he claims to be? How will this damage our experience of faith if it’s never addressed?1

Uncorrected, bad thinking habits
can literally shape our physical brain
making it hard to hear God effectively—
even when our hearts WANT to hear him.

We’re not relating to him the way he’s relating to us.

2 Realms + 2 Domains + 3 Phases + 1 Flow

As the heading above indicates, I will walk through four aspects of managing our thinking. But before doing so, we need to be conscious of a very real risk:

It’s easy to oversimplify the process,
and potentially do more harm than good.

Human thought processes are incredibly diverse, intimate, multifaceted and organically unique to each of us. Contrary to what the heading might imply, our thinking is NOT reducible to a formula that works mechanically, predictably the same way, every time, for every single person.

Trying to comprehend thinking by breaking it into its constituent parts can easily lose sight of the integrated whole. So instead, let’s see how the parts operate within the coherent context of human existence “in God”—and him “in us.” 2+2+3+1 are macro-patterns that allow us to appreciate, with awe and wonder, how God created us to commune with him.

This article will be a fly-over of the first two (2 Realms and 2 Domains), and the next article will cover the last two (3 Phases and 1 Flow).

2 REALMS of Thinking

We are embodied spiritual beings, harmoniously living in two realms simultaneously: the physical and the spiritual. Applying this in the context of thought activity reveals two areas of focus:

• The MIND — The thoughts in your mind are the part of your spirit/soul, the immaterial part of you that is a conscious and sentient being that is intimately connected to but distinct from your physical body.2

• The BRAIN — The thoughts in your brain exist as physical energy: electrical impulses stored and transmitted across the cells and synapses of your brain.

It’s impossible to know, of course, where one realm stops and the other starts. But we don’t need to know that to manage them well. What’s most important for us to know is that both require renewal for our spiritual transformation to occur (Rom. 12.1-2).

So we must steward both intentionally.

Why The 2 Realms Matter

I find it helpful to understand the interaction of the brain and the mind by picturing the brain as a car, and the mind as the driver. This, of course, is a metaphor (remember my caution about over-simplifying above). But it reveals a significant principle that’s necessary for our spiritual formation:

• As the driver, the mind decides where to go and how to get there.

• As the car, the brain responds to and activates the mind’s inputs.

The problem comes in that it’s easy for the mind to allow the brain to drive autonomously.

When the mind allows the brain to drive,
the mind becomes a passenger—
“along for the ride”
to wherever the car is going.

When parts of the physical brain hold on to unrenewed thoughts, it resists driving toward the new ways of thinking God invites us into:

• “Love your enemies.”

• “Consider it pure joy when you encounter trials.”

• “When you are weak, then you are strong.”

• “You are my masterpiece, and I’m so pleased with you.”

Our brains have been traveling those opposing pathways all our lives, so the old roads are familiar, well-maintained and easy to follow. Our brain needs to be trained to think differently.

This training involves a process called neuroplasticity—the brain's capacity to physically reorganize itself by strengthening, weakening and developing neural connections in response to repeated experience and thought. I’ll talk about this more in future articles, but the main point is this:

Our brains will not develop
unless our minds engage as the driver.

Thinking Correctly in the 2 Realms

Mostly, this comes down to three principles:

1. Know that your mind is more than a passenger to your brain’s thoughts.
   Your mind can drive changes in your physical brain. This will require constant attention and continual repetition of thought—along with the belief that the changes will come—but your brain will eventually conform.3

2. Just because you have a thought in your brain doesn’t make it legitimate or true.
   Remember worry? Thoughts of worry and anxiety seem natural … but they’re based in fear, not in truth. They may feel familiar, but just because we practice them all the time doesn’t mean they’re reliable.

3. Neuroplastic development comes through repeated, habitual use of the new thought.
   It’s not enough to think the new thought one time, or to simply acknowledge a thought as true. It requires consistent, focused thinking that then becomes a lifelong habit we leverage daily until we see Jesus face-to-face.

2 DOMAINS of Thinking

In addition to thinking in 2 realms, there are two different ways to attend to the things we perceive, know and experience:

• Rational Processing — This is explicit, tangible, abstract (i.e. it’s understood apart from a specific context) and typically conscious. Math, for instance, largely utilizes rational processing, as does most of our language function.

• Intuitive Processing — This is implicit, intangible and is usually highly connected to a context. We might be consciously aware of some intuitive processing, but most of it is unconscious. Typical practices include having “gut” feelings, empathy, emotions, reading body language, comprehending metaphor, paradox, sarcasm and narrative/story.

Importantly, both domains are legitimate and viable—neither is more important than the other. Both domains require renewal for our transformation, so we must be intentional about stewarding both domains.

Generally speaking, these two domains correspond to different emphases in our brain’s hemispheres:

• The right hemisphere’s processing supports intuition.

• The left hemisphere’s processing support rational thinking.

Both hemispheres are involved in virtually everything we do. So the old perception of someone being either “right-brained/creative” or “left-brained/logical” is almost entirely useless. This concept should be thrown as far downwind as possible.

We have one brain, and both hemispheres of our brain are designed to work together harmoniously and interdependently—even though in many ways they are opposites of each other.

The problems come when
we don’t use them in
the way God designed them.

Why The 2 Domains Matter

In the West, we are now over-reliant on the rational (left-hemisphere) domain, while simultaneously overly-suspicious of the intuitive (right-hemisphere) domain.

We’ve become addicted to the clarity and certainty that the rational domain provides. It’s easier and feels more “real.” As a result, we don’t know how to recognize—much less utilize—the intuitive domain. We’ve trained our brains to drive autonomously using our left hemispheres.

We’ve lost the competency of integrated thinking.
We’ve lost our minds.

And now we can’t relate to God the way he’s relating to us.

Thinking Correctly in the 2 Domains

This may be the most challenging part of changing our thought habits, because virtually everything else in our experience reinforces a rational, left-hemispherical way of thinking.

The next article (covering the 3 Phases and 1 Flow) will provide more structure. But for now, the biggest hurdle involves belief—we simply don’t believe that intuitive processing is legitimate and trustworthy.4

So the first step is simply this: Notice.

• What do you recognize in your thinking? What patterns consistently show up?

• That random thought that felt like a shooting star in your thinking … what was it?

• What emotion are you feeling at the moment (don’t react to it, just notice it)?

• What’s your gut telling you (again: don’t act on it, but what’s it telling you)?

• What might this person be trying to say, though their word-choice is poor?

• How is fear motivating my thinking right now?

• What images, memories, stories or people are coming to mind?

Engaging in thoughts like this might seem … distracting. You might be thinking, “I don’t have time or energy to think about all this!” But actually, all this processing is already happening—you’re just not consciously aware of it.

The opportunity comes in noticing it. You may want to take 5-minute breaks from your activity (like the end of the day or at lunch) to give yourself the space to notice. The content in the next article will provide you a way to process it effectively. Eventually, you’ll learn how to integrate it seamlessly and effortlessly into your thinking.

Relating to God

The next article will show how to practically apply the 2 Realms and 2 Domains. So for now, don’t try to fix what you notice.

Just notice.

Pay attention to the thoughts, emotions, images, instincts and reactions already moving through you.

Learning to steward our thinking begins by becoming aware of how we’re already thinking so we can bring it into conformity to Christ. Some will involve correction; some will involve deepening. It will all get sorted out and aligned in due time.

Because the goal isn’t simply to think better. It’s to become increasingly capable of relating to God in the same way he’s relating to us.

Peace be with you …

Agree? Disagree?
I’m eager to know your thoughts and
kick this content around with you.
Leave a comment or message me to discuss.

Leave a comment

Footnotes:

Consider This:
If someone speaks to you in a language you don’t recognize,
do you automatically assume that they aren’t communicating?

I’m currently writing a series of articles themed around hearing God. I kicked it off with Can We Hear God?, where I suggested the clear and common-sense understanding that hearing God—from an identity of dependence—is an organic part of being human.

If we can agree that hearing God is participating in ongoing interaction and communication with the Holy Spirit, then to NOT hear God is to miss out on the fullness of life he intends for us.

I also highlighted that this topic has unfortunately devolved into a polarized theological argument—which is distracting us from the most important issue:

Our greatest concern shouldn’t be
defining how God speaks.
Our concern should be
understanding how we hear.

In the Can We Hear God? article, I laid out two primary reasons we don’t hear God:

1. We’re NOT READY to hear him.

2. We DON’T KNOW HOW to hear him.

I followed that article up with a deeper dive into reason #1: the spiritual issues around not being ready to hear God.

Here’s a link to it if you want to review it …

Part 2 will now unpack the practical issues around how to hear God.

Note: This is part 2 of a paid-subscriber follow-up to Can We Hear God. Upgrade to a paid subscription if you want to have access to this article (and future articles like it).

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Read more

Consider This:
We think hearing God
comes from good theology.
But actually, good theology
comes from hearing God.

If someone asked you, “Can you hear God,” how would you respond?

And in considering your response, are you aware of any confusion, failure, regret or unworthiness over not being able to hear him clearly—or hear him at all?

If so, this is an opportunity to change.

Hidden Irony

The question about God’s people hearing him isn’t new. Western Christianity has wrestled with it for centuries, as far back as the Protestant Reformation (and beyond). Unfortunately, the topic has now devolved into a binary theological argument and interpretive debate.

It’s become so technical and abstracted from reality that it feels more like opposing attorneys arguing for what can be proven, rather than God’s people seeking truth.

Not to oversimplify this, but:

• The Cessationist perspective proposes that God now speaks only through the Scriptures.

• The Continuationist perspective proposes that God’s activity of speaking to his followers has continued from the patterns observed in the biblical record.

Interestingly, there’s an irony in these two positions we often overlook: We’ve focused the debate around how God speaks, not how we hear. So there’s a key truth that both perspectives miss:

However God speaks,
we still need to be able to hear him—
and we’re in dangerous waters if we can’t.

This is a great concern for the Western church. Because we, like the recipients of the letter to the Hebrews, “have become dull of hearing” (Heb. 5.11 ESV).1

We ARE Hearers

In my last article, I defined “hearing God” as participating in ongoing communication with the Holy Spirit. (Here’s the article, if you want to review this in more detail …)

My point in using this definition is to refocus something that has been peripheralized in the theological debate: Our identity—how we perceive ourselves. If we doubt that we can hear God, then we deny the nature of our ontological design. We are questioning part of what it means to be human.

Hearing God should be as natural and organic as breathing. It’s an experience common to God’s people throughout the Bible. But it’s not a common experience for Western believers. And many doubt that it’s possible to hear God consistently and accurately—whether we would admit it out loud or not.

So why this disconnect? Why doesn’t our experience align with our identity?

One reason is that we’ve gradually adopted the world’s thinking habits and beliefs over the course of our history, and appropriated them for use in a Christian context. It was probably unintentional. But once it started, it became too tempting to resist.

These thinking habits drove us to pursue accurate theology, assuming it is the vehicle for hearing God. But in reality, hearing God is what forms truly biblical theology.

If we don’t hear God well,
our theology will be useless
for transforming us into
the image of Christ.

How We Can Move Forward

We should go back to the clear and common-sense understanding that hearing God—from an identity of dependence—is a part of being human. To not hear God is to miss out on the fullness of life he intends for us.

In my last article, I laid out two primary reasons we don’t hear God:

1. We’re not ready to hear him.

2. We don’t know how to hear him.

I want to unpack those realities in two Living It articles. This is Part 1: being ready to hear God.

Note: This is a paid-subscriber follow-up to Can We Hear God. Upgrade to a paid subscription if you want to have access to this article (and future articles like it).

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Read more

Consider This:
What if hearing God isn’t a special ability
reserved for a few people, but part of
what it means to be fully human?

Some questions appear to offer only binary answers. “Did I turn off the stove?” “Is 2 + 2 = 5?”

At first glance, “Can we hear God?” looks like one of these. But trying to answer it with a yes or no response quickly becomes … silly. Not because the answer might be wrong, but rather because the question is so profound.

As a closed-ended question, it certainly allows for a binary answer—but only in an unsatisfying way. It’s a question that resists quick-and-easy, trite responses, and instead compels us to ask more questions.

It invites us, if we are willing, to do just that.

That’s the purpose of this article. I will introduce follow-on questions that call us into deeper reflection around God’s identity, our identity and how it is that we live, move and have our being in this reality we find ourselves in.

I’ll be offering reasonable and biblical perspectives, but this will be far from an information dump. In fact, quite the opposite:

This will be an invitation
to explore what hearing God
means for you.

Meaning: It’s more beneficial if we avoid cookie-cutter formulas to hearing God—which is anything but formulaic. While there are overarching principles that apply to all of us, there are also aspects that are unique to each of us. Your experience of interacting with God in the context of your relationship with him is unique to you.

“Hearing God” is uniquely personal to each of us—exactly as God designed it to be.

So WHAT IS Hearing God?

Before we can answer the question “Can we hear God?”, we first have to define what “hearing God” means.

At its most basic level, hearing God is participating in ongoing communication with the Holy Spirit. As such, the experience of hearing God could include any number of things, like:

• New insight, creative ideas or solutions

• Keener awareness of emotions

• Deeper understanding, fuller comprehension

• Illumination or enlightenment of new truth

• A sense of wisdom or discernment

• An urgent conviction or admonition

• Affirmation of identity or clarification of purpose

• A broader awareness of context

• Encouragement, peace or joy

… Just to name a few.

I’ve observed that, as Westerners, we don’t often view these experiences as integral parts of communing with God. We tend to limit “hearing God” or “God speaking” to cognitive processing of rational information and propositional statements.

This is largely the result of our Western worldview:1

Thinking habits and perspectives
that the Western church has
unknowingly embraced
over the last 1,800 years—
to our great loss.

It’s short-sighted to dismiss the experiences above as legitimate aspects of communing with God. After all, most communication involves things other than articulated rational language. And the deeper and more trusting the relationship, the more complex and comprehensive the communication becomes.

For example, Cheryl (my wife) and I communicate wordlessly at incredibly deep levels. We often know what the other person is thinking without vocalizing it. And the meanings inside this communication are unmistakable and easily interpreted—between us. Much of this communication doesn’t actually need language; indeed, words often fail to capture the meaning.

Why would spiritual communication with our Creator God be any different? After all, he designed us, lives in us and knows us at levels deeper than even the most intimate human relationship.

We should consider:

What would change within us
if we viewed hearing God as
a primary spiritual competency—
a part of what makes us human.

Unfortunately, this question has become framed almost entirely around a theological debate. Before we continue, we should acknowledge that discussion.

CAN We Hear God?

Perhaps unsurprisingly, I say: Yes!

But please don’t view “Yes!” as a defense for one theological position over another. Unfortunately, this topic has devolved into a polarized theological argument in the Western church, leaving us with two binary options:

1. A Continuationist Perspective — God’s activity of speaking to his followers has continued from the patterns observed in the Old and New Testaments.

2. A Cessationist Perspective — God has communicated and revealed himself and his will completely in Christ and the canon of Scripture, so additional revelation is no longer necessary.

I’m asking that we suspend our tendency toward binary thinking for the moment, as it’s unhelpful, simplistic, unproductive and divisive.

What I will present will be applicable and relevant no matter what your theological position may be. My goal is to “make every effort to do what leads to peace and mutual edification” (Rom. 14.19).2

DO We Hear God?

Not to be Captain Obvious, but unfortunately the answer is “no”:

Not all of us hear God,
and not even some of us
hear God all the time.

There are a number of reasons why, many of which I’ll touch on in the coming series of articles. But I see two primary dynamics in play:

1. We’re not READY to hear, and

2. We don’t know HOW to hear.

The first (not being ready to hear) is spiritual. It results from things like:

• We don’t believe we can.

• We’re focused on other things (e.g. lies, falsehood, self-interest, situational realities, etc.).

• We hear on our terms, not God’s (e.g. we’re listening for what God wants us to do, when God’s focus is who he wants us to be).

The second (not knowing how to hear) is practical. It’s derived from things like:

• We listen for the wrong things (ex: listening for information when God’s talking to us about trust).

• We listen the wrong way (I'll explore this more fully in a future article, but for now I’ll summarize by saying we’re over-using our brain’s left hemisphere processes and ignoring our right).

• We listen with skewed expectations (e.g. we ask “why,” when knowing “why” isn’t what’s most relevant).

• We substitute hearing practices (e.g. solitude and silence) for hearing posture—“having ears to hear.”

The coming series of articles will walk through these in more detail. But for now, it might be helpful to simply begin reflecting on your experiences of hearing God in these two domains.

SHOULD We Hear God?

Yes. I say this not only as a matter of opinion, but of Scriptural imperative. In short,

We’re made to hear.

For example:

• Jesus defines us as his sheep who hear his voice and can distinguish it from the stranger’s voice (John 10.4-5).

• In Christ, we are led by the Spirit—assuming we choose to hear and obey (Gal. 5.18).

• The Spirit teaches us truth, reminds us of all that Jesus has said (John 14.26), and explains spiritual realities with Spirit-taught words (1 Cor 2.10-14).

• Our conscience is one of the primary ways God alerts, convicts and guides us (see Rom. 14)—unless our conscience has become calloused, corrupted or seared (see 1 Tim. 4.1-2).

If the appropriate context for hearing God is an ever-more intimate, abiding, robust and resilient relationship with our God—in which we’re tangibly “in him” as he is in us—then we must reframe the concept of hearing God so that it fits in that context.

If we desire that kind of relationship with God, then we must pursue the kind of interaction with God that aligns with it. We are designed by God as hearing beings, so hearing God well fulfills our designed purpose.

So Why DON’T We Hear God?

There’s good news and bad news here …

The bad news is that

WE are the biggest reason
we can’t hear God.

The Scriptures consistently point to the condition of our hearts as the key factor in hearing God. In this sense, if we’re struggling to hear God then we’re an example of the old business mantra: “You’re perfectly positioned to get the results you’re currently getting.”

The good news is that learning to hear God is a straightforward process—with one important caveat: There’s no app for this. It requires concerted and deliberate attention toward repentance (transformation of the mind and how we think).

It involves some things we’re not comfortable doing. This includes arguably the two most challenging disciplines:

1. Abandoning our independence, and

2. Moving away from our consumer mindset.3

Though these are straightforward disciplines, most Western believers don’t practice them well or consistently. We’ve operated from the old patterns for most of our lives. Very likely, we’re not consciously aware of how much they’re impacting our attempts to hear God.

So …

If you’re not willing to
move away from them (i.e. repent),
then your current experience
of hearing God
will remain the same.

Selah.

Where’s This Going?

Over the next several articles we'll explore what prevents us from hearing God, how our thinking gets in the way, why posture matters more than methodology and why God never intended us to discern his voice entirely in isolation.

As of this writing, I’m planning on a number of future articles on hearing God that deal with:

• We’re not thinking correctly (but we can be)

• We’re not ready to hear (so let’s get ready)

• We don’t know how to hear (so let’s figure it out)

• We don’t know what it’s for (so let’s clarify it)

• We don’t hear God together (so let’s get started)

As we go through the process, I’ll look for opportunities to address questions and issues that surface. So please make sure to leave comments and/or message me directly. I’m looking forward to walking through this with you!

Peace be with you …

Do you have a question or issue
about hearing God you want to discuss?
I’m eager to know your thoughts and
kick this content around with you.
Leave a comment or message me to discuss.

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Consider This:
What would change if you
stopped asking God to bless your plans and
started asking what his plans are?

A Friend’s Story

I have a friend who I’ve been journeying with spiritually over the past few years. He’s been a faithful follower of Jesus for a long time, and is committed to being a disciple that looks like Jesus and equipping others to do the same.

In recent years, he’s become aware of his need to live surrendered to God. In recent months, he’s begun to apply this by intentionally setting aside his personal agenda and expectations in order to hear God’s. In other words, his desire is to experience every conversation, every opportunity, every challenge … with a consistently singular approach:

To receive God’s direction.

Not just to SEEK God’s direction, to RECEIVE it.

That may seem like subtlety, but they are radically and fundamentally different postures.

• Previously he would come into a leadership team meeting with an agenda of what he wanted for and from his team. But now he comes with questions: “Lord, how are you working in my team? What does each person need? What do they not fully understand about this business and their role in it? What do they need from me?”

• He used to come into a meeting with a demanding customer with a list of expectations and anxieties. But now he asks, “God, what do I need to understand about this customer? What is he afraid of? How can I/we best serve his needs? How can I help him understand our requirements? How can we collaborate together to get past this roadblock?”

This might seem like a haphazard management style for an owner of a thriving business. But it’s generated some noticeable outcomes, namely: more satisfied customers, better collaboration and smoother operations.

And the most surprising outcome has been something no one else outwardly sees: joy and peace in his heart.

Two Postures

My friend now has a more tangible and lasting sense of God’s presence. He's grown more aware of how God is at work in his life, his business and in the lives of everyone he has the opportunity to influence personally and professionally.

But this realization of God’s work and presence came after becoming aware of his prior posture of independence from God. In other words, he used to believe that God was there to help him accomplish God-honoring things. Now he understands that he’s being invited into the things God is doing.

The old posture assumes that …

1. We know what’s going on and what should be done.

2. We are gifted and capable of accomplishing that—with God’s help, of course (which we ask for in particularly challenging situations).

In other words, we operate from a posture of independence.

The new posture is 180 degrees opposite, and assumes that …

1. Only God knows what’s truly going on and what should be done.

2. By faith, we can receive God’s insight and direction—that often don’t make sense or fully align with what we do on our own.

This new posture doesn’t deny or dismiss our personal capacity, experience, gifting, skills … In fact, to the contrary: It actively puts them at God’s disposal and direction. It takes us out of the driver’s seat of our life, so that we become God’s servant in the moment—to bring his will and intention to bear.

In putting ourselves in a posture of dependence to receive God’s direction,

we become an extension of God
in the physical world.
We live out our identity as
“… the fullness of him
who fills everything in every way.”
(Eph. 1.23)

My Question

Though this had been an ongoing conversation between us over the last year, I recently texted my friend and asked him to describe his experience.

• What moved and motivated him into this dependent posture?

• What tipped the scales toward desiring to live dependently seeking the Spirit’s direction on a moment-by-moment basis?

His text response was interesting, and insightful …

His Response

“That’s an interesting question. This would take a while to unpack, but a few things quickly come to mind:

1. “Affirming that I can do nothing on my own. Realizing through experiences and personal reflection that I can do nothing apart from Christ. As a branch abiding in the Vine, I have to receive from him in order to have any fruitfulness at all. There is nothing in me that has the capacity to produce kingdom fruit. I have to truly discern the will of God, which is often contrary or counter to the normal ways of the world—even the ones that seem practical and logical.

2. “Recognizing outcomes from my own initiative. I’ve had enough difficult experiences resulting from acting on my own independent wisdom—even as a follower of Christ who professed that “he leads me.” These difficulties helped lead me to my knees and into a place of surrender. He’s pruning me.

3. “Comprehending that God speaks to his people. Accepting the truth that God speaks to his people—if they hear his voice and they follow him. Really? If so, we need to be listening to the Spirit with the fabric and filter of the word of God, the truth, thoroughly ingrained in our beings.

4. “Seeking intimacy with God. The joy of deeper relational fellowship with God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit. A life of faith just seems empty without the intimacy that allows for the give-and-take, the prompt-and-respond; the seeing and experiencing of miraculous things in result.

5. “Desiring to see God’s kingdom come. I have a greater desire to see the kingdom come and his will be done; to see the gospel advanced on the Earth. A greater sense of accomplishment from that than anything else on earth … Greater than family, business, other things … More of an eternal perspective.

6. “The fear of God. I’m gonna stand before him one day and give account for all I’ve said and done. It better be what he wanted … I don’t want that day to be one where I show up having done a lot of good things, depended on myself or done what I thought was right, and have them not be the things he had for me or wanted me to do. I want to be like Jesus and glorify him as well as finish the work that he (God) gave me to do (Jn. 17:4).”

[60-SECOND PAUSE … AND A SECOND TEXT]

“Hey, for some reason, I just thought more about your question … I paused for a moment, and a somewhat simple concept emerged:

I perceive myself more as a young child,
smiling, curious and just enjoying life
because I know I have a heavenly father
who is taking care of me
and will order my steps.

“Probably a more mature way than a child would actually think about it, but the sense I have is like being a kid again.”

Unpacking His Response

A couple of things in his response are worthy of note.

Wisdom (Not Just Information)

Thinking about the content of what my friend shared, I see four elements.

1. Our Identity. He saw himself as “a branch,” an embodied metaphor that describes who we are, not just how we function.

2. God’s Identity. Jesus is the Vine that provides life for us.

3. God’s Activity. God speaks to us, and desires intimacy with us. He’s advancing his kingdom and building his church. Everything he’s doing is moving toward a conclusion.

4. How We “See” Our Reality. We have the option of either choosing to be a part God’s activity, or not.

These aren’t theological statements or new strategy or methodology. This isn’t information.

This is comprehending reality
at a whole new level.

His thoughts are outcomes. They represent experiential knowledge and wisdom that came as a result of experiencing intimacy with God.

Renewing (Not Just Thinking)

Without realizing it, my friend experienced an aspect of mind renewal: thinking in ways that leverage his whole brain to process his thoughts.

I’ll be digging into this more in future articles, but the big idea is that we can be better stewards of our thinking by using both hemispheres of our brains in collaborative ways.

Take a look at the six items in the first part of his response. What do you notice? They’re …

• Explicit.

• Clearly defined.

• Describable using familiar language (even if that language is developing deeper meanings).

• Actionable, practical and somewhat measurable.

• They create a clear contrast in our minds.

Now what do you notice about the thoughts after the 60-second pause? They’re …

• Experiential.

• Relational.

• Identity-laden (“like being a kid again”).

• Open, unbounded and limitless.

• Curious.

• Exploratory.

• Joy-full and carefree.

The numbered list is RATIONAL processing. It came quickly to mind because his left hemisphere has become consciously aware of them. They are things that he’d recognized over the course of the year of walking with God experientially. They have become milestones and pulse-checks for his journey with Jesus.

The awareness of being a child is INTUITIVE processing. It came after a time of reflection, which allowed his right hemisphere (which is more attuned to unconscious processing) to present the deeper realities of his identity and relationship with God to his conscious processing in his left hemisphere.

Interestingly, it may appear that the explicit, left-hemisphere list produced the implicit child-of-God awareness. But it was actually the other way around.

His right-hemisphere’s implicit knowledge (being a child of God) UNCONSCIOUSLY created the environment that then produced his left-hemisphere’s explicit knowledge (concrete, rational descriptions).

His further reflection on the clear and concise nature of practically embracing his dependence (what I like to call “reintegration”) then allowed for him to become conscious of what he previously only knew unconsciously:

He’s God’s kid,
and God’s kids are confident
in what they do in life.

What Does All This Mean?

My friend’s story is a real life example of how …

1. Stewarding our thoughts, and

2. Embracing our identity

… work together in sync with hearing God.

Jesus affirms that he speaks to his followers, and that knowing him allows us to hear his voice (Jn. 10.1-16). This makes hearing God one of the most basic spiritual life realities for the church.

And yet, the church in the West
struggles to understand it—
much less consistently practice it.

I want to offer some insights that will help change that. I’ll be working in this theme in my upcoming articles for the next little while, so stay tuned.

Peace be with you …

Have any thoughts or questions about hearing God?
I’m eager to hear from you.
Leave a comment or message me to discuss.

Leave a comment

Consider This:
Every day something tells you who you are.
The only question is
whether you’re listening to God
—or everything else.

This is the second installment of a 2-part look into what it means to be made in God’s image. I opened the previous article by saying that most Jesus followers agree that we are the imago Dei (Latin for “image of God”), but few know what it really means—much less know what difference it makes in how we live.

So the goal of these two articles is to provide two insights in genuinely living as God’s image bearer—in a New Testament, “in Christ” context:

1. A simple but foundational mindset that reframes your reality.

2. A way to practice that mindset on a day-to-day basis.

Since Part 1 covered the foundational mindset, Part 2 will provide an operating template that we can apply on a daily and even moment-by-moment basis to walk out our renewed identity in Christ in tangible ways.

The Mindset Revisited

The mindset from Part 1 includes some elements that are relevant to the daily practice I’ll be laying out in this article. Here’s a refresher (and a link to the full article):

1. As the imago Dei, we are a physical extension of God.

• We’re made to reflect and represent him, rule over creation (pre-Fall), serve as his reconciling ambassadors (post-resurrection) as “the fullness of him who fills everything in every way” (Eph. 1.23).

2. Being an extension of God requires a dependent identity.

• “Dependent” here isn’t (just) a faith practice, it’s our design—we are dependent beings by nature.

• The moon is the brightest thing in the night sky, but it isn’t a light source—it’s a light reflector. Just as the moon is dependent on the sun, so we are dependent on God to reflect his image.

3. Not embracing our dependent nature is rejecting what God made us to be.

• This was Adam and Eve’s choice in the Garden.

4. Rejecting our created nature doesn’t eliminate our dependence, it just redirects it—to the world.

• We don’t have the capacity to function independently (though it feels like we do).

• Our dependent nature means that we’ll always depend on something, whether that’s God or the world (and everything in it).

Note: This 2-part series is a paid-subscriber follow-up to a previous article that was free to everyone: You Were Designed to Depend.

Subscribe if you want to have access to this 2-part series (and future articles like it).

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Read more

Consider This:
Every single one of us lives dependently.
The only question is what
—or who—we’re depending on.

Most Christians agree with the statement that we were made in God’s image. But …

Few of us comprehend what that actually means, much less know how to practically apply it in our lives.

This, folks, is an enormous problem. Not only does this lack of understanding negatively impact virtually every aspect of our faith practice, it is the source of almost every destructive thing that happens in the world.

I want to give you two things that will allow you to live as God’s image bearer—in a New Testament, “in Christ” context:

1. A simple but foundational mindset that reframes your reality.

2. A way to practice that mindset on a day-to-day basis.

This article (Part 1) will cover the mindset, and a follow-up article (Part 2) will walk through the daily practice.

So let’s explore the reality-framing mindset that Jesus calls us to adopt. And just so you know: It’s a mindset you’ve probably never considered before …

Note: This is a paid-subscriber follow-up to a previous article,
You Were Designed to Depend.

Subscribe if you want to have access to this article (and future articles like it).

Subscribe now

Read more

Consider This:
After my recent cataract surgery,
I was amazed at how much brighter and sharper
the world appeared through my new lens.
More sobering, however, was realizing
how long I had mistaken
a distorted view of reality
for reality itself.

New Eyes

I’d known I had cataracts for several years, but put it out of my mind because “it was minor” and “I didn’t need to worry about it.” So when it became difficult to see with my glasses—especially driving at night—I assumed I needed a new prescription.

But the ophthalmologist told me I didn’t need new glasses, I needed new eyes. The cataracts in my eyes’ lenses had gotten much worse since they were first discovered, and I had absolutely zero awareness of it.

I blamed my glasses. But the problem was me.

I recently had cataract surgery on both eyes (which is why I haven’t posted since my last article). They replaced my left lens first—my dominant eye. It’s hard to describe the shock I experienced.

I first noticed it the day after surgery, in our bathroom. When I looked through my right eye (with its cataract), the white countertop looked normal. But when I looked through my repaired left eye, what I saw was dramatically brighter.

This picture (as best I can reproduce it) captures what I saw:

What I’d thought was white was actually a dirty-yellow haze. And if you’d have told me the white I was seeing was yellow, I would’ve said you were wrong.

Selah.

More Than Eyesight

Why does Scripture place so much emphasis on seeing?

• “Open my eyes that I may see wonderful things in your law” (Ps. 119.18)

• “LORD, my eyes are not haughty” (Ps. 131.1)

• “I have been broken over … their eyes that go whoring after their idols” (Ezek. 6.9)

• “They have eyes to see, but do not see” (Ezek. 12.2)

• “They have closed their eyes” (Mt. 13.15)

• “Blessed are the eyes that see what you see” (Luke 10.23)

• “They cannot see the light of the gospel that displays the glory of Christ” (2 Cor. 4.4)

• “That the eyes of your heart may be enlightened” (Eph. 1.18)

Throughout Scripture, the eye is often used as a symbol for mental perception—the means by which we discern, interpret and respond to reality.

That may explain why Jesus' most famous statement about the eye has almost nothing to do with vision.

The Lamp of the Body

“The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are healthy, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eyes are unhealthy, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness!”
(Mat 6:22-23)

Jesus includes this comment in describing things that seduce our trust, like public approval, treasure and competing masters. Whatever captures our trust also captures our attention, which gradually becomes the lens through which we interpret everything else.

In other words, we choose what we want to observe, and the mindset by which we observe it. And this observational choice changes what we end up “seeing.”

My cataract didn’t change reality, but it dramatically changed what I perceived reality to be. Similarly, the eye functions as a lens for the rest of life. What enters through that lens doesn’t define reality, it shapes how we interpret reality—and how we then live it out.

The weight of Jesus’ comment is profound: Distorted perception isn't merely possible—it’s one of humanity's most defining problems.

Few passages illustrate this better than Isaiah's commissioning.

Seeing But Not Perceiving

In Isaiah’s call to ministry, God gives him an astounding task:

Go and tell this people: “Be ever hearing, but never understanding; be ever seeing, but never perceiving.” Make the heart of this people calloused; make their ears dull and close their eyes. Otherwise they might see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their hearts, and turn and be healed.”
(Isa. 6:9-10, emphasis mine)

Jesus cited this passage to explain why he spoke in parables. His point:

• Those with “good” eyes would see the meaning and truth of the kingdom and pursue it further.

• Those with “bad” eyes would see only gibberish.

This may be one of the Bible’s most sobering warnings. If our “eye” isn’t healthy, we can be looking directly at reality—with all sincerity and the best of intentions—and be blind to what it truly is.

The truth becomes false; and false becomes our truth. And the onus for our lack of comprehension is on us.

My cataract-affected lenses were normal to me. Likewise, we can see through the lenses of experiences and faith practices that seem normal but are actually giving us a false perception of reality.

Things like traditions, strategy, theological constructs, doctrines, goals, vision … Though healthy and purposeful, they become dangerous when they replace humble dependence upon God. Experiences that elevate us in the eyes of others can change the way we see ourselves, people and God. Traumatic experiences induce so much pain and vulnerability that they affect how we see the rest of life.

They can all make our eyes bad.

Jesus dealt with a group of people who provide perhaps the clearest biblical example of sincere people whose spiritual lenses had become corrupted.

Blind Idolatry

The Pharisees of Jesus’ day were deeply devoted to God. They were disciplined, knowledgeable and passionate; solely dedicated to the Messiah’s coming.

Yet Jesus repeatedly called them blind. Why?

Because their interpretations and rules became the eyes through which they saw reality. Though it was disconnected from reality, their way of life had become normalized to their own interpretation.

They hadn’t rejected God. Instead, they’d gradually replaced dependence upon God with confidence in their own interpretation of him. Entirely unintentionally—yet of their own choosing—they’d slipped into a form of idolatry: an idolatry of self.

After all, idolatry isn’t merely the worship of figurines; that’s far too obvious. Idolatry comes much more subtly and insidiously.

Practicing idolatry involves two key factors:

1. Creating false images of God (huh … another “seeing” activity), and

2. Placing functional trust in ourselves and the things we control—instead of God.

Though they claimed to honor God, they put their trust in their self-generated interpretation of reality. It expediently positioned them in authority over the God they claimed to honor.

The image of God they created in their minds was so distorted that when God showed up in the flesh, they killed him.

I wonder: Do we believe we are immune from the same error?

Selah.

What If We Cannot See Our Own Blindness?

Frankly, I have grave concerns for the church in the West. The greatest danger we face isn’t related to things we usually pay attention to: doctrine, theology, strategy or our position on social issues.

The greatest danger is our unrecognized blindness that reduces faith to information, positional statements, public following and adherence to accepted behavior.

Consider: What kind of spiritual “eyes” produce the behaviors we commonly exhibit?

• Why do we so easily create lists of approved theological positions to hold, churches to attend and teachers to follow?

• Why are we so quick to promote what we “see” as right, and judge everything else as wrong?

• Why are we so attracted to answers that can’t be questioned, and so impatient with questions that can’t be answered?

• Why do we give so much energy and attention to distinguishing ourselves from each other, instead of focusing on what we share in common?

• Why do we so readily desire power, control and status, and have such apathy for service, humility and faith?

• Why do we so easily elevate some people—including ourselves—over others?

• Why do we struggle to be in relationship with people different from us?

• Why do we view faith as something to consume rather than something to be?

• Why are we so afraid and anxious?

• Why do we so poorly excel in love?

Selah.

The Eyes of Our Heart

One of the apostle Paul’s most heartfelt prayers for the Ephesian believers was that “the eyes of [their] heart may be enlightened” (Eph. 1.18). What a beautiful contrast to Pharisaical blindness.

Paul isn’t praying for more information. He’s praying for clearer perception.

We see the same theme over and over in the New Testament:

• Romans 12 — transformation, humility and inter-personal connection as the outcomes of a renewed mind.

• Philippians 2 — a commitment to seeing reality from Jesus’ mindset.

• Colossians 3 — setting our focus on heavenly things, not earthly.

The goal of being and making disciples that look like Jesus isn’t merely better doctrine and theological certainty, it’s learning to perceive reality through the eyes of Christ—to have his mind; to live as he lived, and love as he loved.

Seeing What We’ve Been Missing

Before surgery, my distorted vision had become my normal. My bad eye was not obvious to me because I had adapted to it.

Our opportunity is to become aware of what we've adapted to, and through new eyes to see how far out of alignment we may be with the kingdom. In other words, repent—metanoia (transformed thinking).

Because Jesus’ invitation isn’t merely to believe the right things. It is to have eyes to see.

He calls us to continually surrender our false identities, assumptions and perceptions to him. To allow the Spirit to expose the lenses through which we interpret reality, so that we can become more like him.

Brothers and sisters, let’s build the kind of legacy that—when time is done—it can’t ever be said that our greatest problem was failing to see.

Peace be with you …

Agree? Disagree?
I’m eager to know your thoughts and
kick this content around with you.
Leave a comment of message me to discuss.

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I was out of hope.

At 24, I knew I had no more backyard left to bury my guilt. Though I didn’t consider myself bad, I knew I was a failure at being good.

I’d come to realize that attaining self-directed “goodness” is a useless strategy.

Having grown up with a German Catholic heritage, my perspective on life in general centered on get-it-done, follow-the-rules and do-it-right-or-don’t-do-it-at-all thinking. Religiously, I’d assumed God operated from this same “be good” approach, so I worked hard to be good (enough) and put my all chips on the hopes that he’d grade on a curve.

Uh, … no.

So here I sat, a hopeless failure at being good. But hope came in a flood to my hopelessness when I read Galatians 2.21:

“If we could be made right by following the rules (a.k.a. being good), then Christ died for nothing.”
(my paraphrase)

I didn’t understand it, but I knew it was true—at levels I didn’t know existed and couldn’t explain. Instantly, my world went from black-and-white to full color. I didn’t know what to do, so without thinking I stood up with my arms raised and shouted to God, “You got me!”

I left behind the idea of achieving self-directed “goodness” … or so I thought.

The Rest of the Story

My journey took a hard right turn into newness of life; wonderful beyond description. “Born again,” the Bible called it.

But as renewing and transformational as it was, I still couldn’t shake an old self-perception of being a failure. For 40 years—including a seminary education and 15 years of vocational ministry experience—I lived with the familiar nagging of accusation and doubt that I didn’t quite measure up.

I knew I was saved, but I viewed myself as a saved failure. I assumed it was my “flesh”1 influencing me, or that it was spiritual attack from the enemy—neither of which, frankly, offered much freedom.

I wondered what it meant to be “free indeed” (John 8.36). I resigned myself to the belief that this indeed-level freedom would eventually come in heaven.

Looking back, I see now what I didn’t then: I believed Jesus had forgiven me, but I still interpreted myself through the same old lens. I’d embraced being a “new creation” in Christ (2 Corinthians 5.17), but held on to the one thing my salvation wouldn’t change: my old identity.

Unknowingly, I was living with two active and opposing perceptions of who I was.

Two Selves?

On paper, having two active self-perceptions may sound like some kind of schizophrenia or dissociative identity disorder (DID). But it’s not.

At the core of these two self-perception options is one central question: What do we believe about being a dependent being? Fundamentally, ontologically, are we relying on God to define us, or are we self-defining?

God created us to “image” him, to be utterly dependent upon him. However, sin involves the inherited belief that we are independent: that we have the ability to generate our own identity, meaning, purpose and passion from within ourselves.

The implication of this dependence/independence issue is profound: We don’t have the ability to 1) define who we are, 2) make sense of our reality, 3) understand our purpose or 4) generate a holy passion for living out that purpose in God-aligned ways.

According to Scripture, we never were meant to.

God designed us to receive all these from him—a concept Jesus reiterated to his disciples, which he described as “abiding”:

“… apart from me you can do nothing.”
(John 15.7)

In my case, I was operating (unconsciously and unawares) from my old identity: independently trying to live out my new dependent identity in Christ. It sounds silly to write it that way, but that’s what was happening.

I was living out the belief that I could (with the help of the Holy Spirit) achieve self-directed “Jesus-ness”2—which, of course, is impossible; nonsensical. In truth, I was failing … at something that no human can ever achieve.

All this contributed to that unshakeable nagging and doubt.

• The enemy was telling me I was failing because I was a failure—a lie that I accepted all too frequently.

• The Spirit of God was telling me I was failing because my belief about who I was (and who God is) was unrenewed—a truth I’d never explored.

My understanding of what Jesus had saved me from was too narrow.

Problem: Our Limited Perspective on Sin & the Gospel

Western patterns of thinking often narrow our perception of the gospel. We typically view sin and salvation through rational, logical and sequential lenses. Through these lenses:

• “Sin” = doing bad things

• “Gospel” = the transaction of Jesus’ death as payment for “sin”

• “Belief” = the “gospel” content that we grasp intellectually

“Salvation” becomes accepting the gift of justification (where Jesus’ death pays the penalty for sin), while holding on to our old, independent identity.

We add Jesus to our old life.

This perspective misses the broader and more holistic contexts of identity, restoration and reconciliation.

Solution: “Sin” as Separation & “Gospel” as Reconciliation

In my last article—What’s Actually Broken in Us—I laid out how the Fall didn’t just cause humanity to begin doing bad things, it disconnected us from the source of life itself. Living in full dependence on God was replaced with a rebellious, independent identity that distanced us from him.

So sin isn’t just unrighteous behavior and being in a state of unholiness; it’s separation from the source of all righteousness and holiness.

Seeing sin as separation helps us see how the gospel’s over-arching emphasis is reconciliation. The gospel reconnects us to God. And since our independent identity is what separated us from him, it can’t contribute to our reconciliation.

So instead, God gives us a new identity—one that’s (being) conformed into the image of Jesus.

In other words: When we trust in Jesus, God doesn’t upgrade our old self. He gives us a new self, and calls us to live in it.

Practicing New Identity: Denying, Putting Off & Putting On

This is why Jesus said:

“Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.”
(Mark 8.34)

My experience is that we usually interpret “deny ourselves” to mean penitence or self-sacrifice, to deprive, loathe or shame ourselves. Or even worse, to believe that we’re unworthy.

Which misses Jesus’ point altogether.

He goes on to clarify what he means:

“For whoever wants to save their [self/soul]3 will lose it, but whoever loses their [self/soul] for me and for the gospel will save it. What good is it for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul? Or what can anyone give in exchange for their soul?”
(Mark 8.35-37)

Read these verses again … but this time from the perspective that Jesus is talking about the two options of our self-perception—who we think we are and who we want to be—which is either …

• Our old autonomous, independent self, or …

• The new dependent self that God created us to be—who he wants to live with to accomplish his kingdom purposes.

Jesus’ point is that reconciliation with God requires abandoning the old independent identity that separated us from him.4 It means losing sight of who we were, shutting ourselves off from its independent interests in order to accept and embrace our dependency to God in Christ.

Paul describes this as “putting off” the old self and “putting on” the new.

“Do not lie to each other, since you have taken off your old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator.”
(Col. 3.9-10)

“You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; to be made new in the [spirit] of your minds; and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.”
(Eph. 4.22-24)

Holding on to the old self is the futile thinking habits of being separated from God. It makes people darkened in their understanding, ignorant and hardened in their heart, making them insensitive to God.

They become increasingly insensitive to God’s presence and influence. So their only way forward is to give themselves over to ever-increasing sensuality, which leads to over-indulgence, impurity and greed—which is idolatry.5

For Paul, this putting off and on is an intentional thought habit believers should lean into. He says to set our minds on things above, not on earthly things (Col. 3.1). We’re told to count our old self as dead to us, since we’re no longer bound to it (Rom. 6.8-14).

Implications

There are several significant implications we need to consider.

Misplaced Trust

We can’t live “free indeed” with two competing self-perceptions. Accepting our new dependent identity without also denying our old, independent self confuses what we trust.6

Sometimes we trust God. Other times we trust ourselves. And even when we trust God, it’s often partial and selective—we aren’t fully convinced he’s trustworthy.

Becoming Double-Souled

This contributes to us being “double-minded” (James 1.8, 4.8)—a term that literally means “double-souled” (“minded” is psychos, the same word translated as “life” and “soul” in Mark 8.35-37).

The result is instability. We trust God for eternal salvation (conveniently, since it’s outside our control anyway), while struggling to trust him for today.

Self-Identifying as Slaves

Perhaps the most insidious and indicting implication is that trusting ourselves means choosing to live under our old self’s power and influence. Though free, we prefer slavery.

This is an identity statement: Instead of living as free-indeed beings, we self-identify as slaves.

Practicing Putting On

I’m choosing the alternative. I’m setting my heart and mind on heavenly things, and learning to deny the old self’s influence over me.

In Jesus’ words, I’m losing my identity—in order to gain it.

Being a disciple is less about becoming a better version of ourselves, and more about learning to live from the identity God gave us in Christ. Let’s do this, together, and then make disciples that do the same.

Peace be with you …

Leave a comment

Footnotes:

We all know that there’s more to life than we usually experience. It’s a steady awareness that life was meant to feel … more. More whole, grounded and alive than it often does.

This awareness immediately drives us to ask: What can we do about it? But although this is a natural question, it’s unfortunately the wrong question—it assumes we already understand the problem.

“What can we do?” is a strategy question. And if we haven’t identified the actual problem, no amount of strategy will help us.1

And it most likely will hurt us—especially when it comes to making disciples. Because the church won’t have anything to offer a world longing for more if it has no solution itself.

We can’t fix a problem we haven’t identified.

What’s Really Broken?

This is where it gets a bit tricky. Because our Western Christian orientation quickly blames sin as the problem, and just as quickly points to the gospel as the solution.

This isn’t wrong, but it is too narrow in scope. After all, if we’re so settled on sin as the problem and the gospel as the solution, why does our longing persist?

Here’s the reality: While sin is indeed the problem (and the gospel is indeed the solution), we don’t fully comprehend the scope of the problem of sin, and what sin actually broke.

And because we don’t know what’s actually broken, we don’t understand what the gospel actually fixes.

Sin As Separation

Our longing for more in life reflects a reality Scripture describes in simple but far-reaching terms: separation.

The Fall didn’t just cause humanity to begin doing bad things; it disconnected us from the source of life itself. Living in full dependence on God was replaced with distance from him.

That separation existentially reshaped us. Rest became striving, peace became uncertainty and openness became vulnerability. Life’s “normal” patterns trace back to that shift, even if we don’t recognize it:

• We try to secure our own sense of worth.

• We manage outcomes we can’t control.

• We search for meaning in temporal things.

Defining sin as “falling short of God’s glory”—our typical Western definition—turns our focus toward behavior: our failure to live up to God’s standard of holiness. But defining sin as “separation from God” reveals that our unrighteous behavior is an outcome that flows from something deeper.

Sin isn’t just unrighteous behavior and a state of unholiness; it’s separation from the source of all righteousness and holiness.2

Identity: What We Were Made For (and What Changed)

In my previous article—You Were Designed to Depend—we explored what it means to be created as dependent beings. We were designed to receive our identity, meaning and purpose from God, not to generate them from within. That dependence wasn’t a limitation; it was the structure of life itself.

When separation occurred, our identity shifted with it.

• Instead of receiving who we are, we try to define ourselves.

• Instead of living from connection, we live from independence.

That shift didn’t just change what we do; it changed what we believe about ourselves. We’ve learned to live as if we direct our life, expecting God to help us be who we want to be—even as we feel the weight of sustaining it.

Reconciliation: What the Gospel Fixes

If separation is our problem, then the solution cannot simply be our improvement.

So the gospel addresses the root issue by restoring what was broken: our connection to God. Through Jesus, reconciliation with God becomes reality—not only as an eternal hope, but as a present truth; not only as status and classification, but as relationship.

This is so much more than being forgiven of our sins. It means being brought near, reconnected to the source of life itself (Ephesians 2.13-18).

A New Identity to Receive
(and Freedom From the Old One)

Being connected to God doesn’t upgrade our identity; it gives us an entirely new identity (2 Corinthians 5.11-21). Scripture describes living in this new identity as “putting off the old self” and “putting on the new” (see Ephesians 4.22-24, Colossians 3.5-10).

To receive our new and dependent identity, we must actively abandon our old, independent one. This is a mix of paradoxical actions:

• Letting go of our right to live independently and autonomously (literally “self-rule”)—something we’ve done all our lives …

in order to …

• Grab hold of a life of dependency and letting someone else direct us (specifically, the Holy Spirit)—something life and the world have conditioned us to be afraid of.

But this raises an important—and often confusing—question: What happens to our old identity when we let it go?

A complicating factor is that getting our new identity doesn’t eliminate the old one. Romans 6 confirms that in our baptism with Christ, it was our old identity’s power over us that died, not the identity itself. We’re no longer bound to live from the old self (though it still compels us to).3

In other words, we now are free to practice a new kind of responsibility: to choose which self-perception we will live from—independent, or dependent.

Collective Identity: Restored Together

Another part of our problem is that sin not only separated us from God, it separated us from each other.

Our new identity addresses this problem because it’s simultaneously individual and collective. Scripture consistently describes us in communal terms: a body, a family, a household, a people, a kingdom. We are individual reflections of Jesus, and at the same time members together of that body.

So our new identity not only eliminates our independence from God, it eliminates our independence from each other. We are uniquely distinct from each other, yet intimately interdependent with each other. We reflect our triune God in that we who are many are also one—and neither our individuality or our unity is compromised.

The writer of Hebrews captures this reality in a way that challenges our assumptions:

Let this sink in: The heroes of the faith that preceded us are made complete through our collective practice of faith today.

The gospel isn’t manifested in isolation, as some kind of individual transaction. We’ve been brought into something that’s bigger than us: An identity that’s interwoven, collectively and across time.

We are the body of Christ.

Where Do We Go From Here?

So … We now have our new identity—but we still live with the pull of the old one. So how do we actually live from what’s now true?

My next article will address how to practically live out the gospel of our reconciliation by putting it into practice. Specifically, this involves putting off the old self and putting on our new one that looks like Jesus.

Peace be with you …

Leave a comment

Footnotes:

You weigh your options, and make your decisions. You define your path. Your create your strategies and carry responsibility for what your life becomes.

That’s normal. It’s what you’ve been taught.

Especially in the West—and even more so in the U.S.—we’ve been shaped by a story that prizes independence, self-sufficiency and personal agency. We’re taught to stand on our own, figure things out and make something of ourselves.

There’s discipline in that. Initiative. Responsibility.

But there’s also something underneath it that we rarely stop to question. Because even when things are going well, there’s often a subtle tension running beneath the surface. A low-grade anxiety. A sense that something’s slightly off—even when we can’t quite explain why.

We carry more than we expected to carry. We feel responsible for more than we were designed to manage. We worry about failure. We’ve lived it so long it feels natural.

But what if it isn’t? What if independence isn’t just a cultural value—but a misalignment with how we were created? What if the tension we feel isn’t random?

What if it’s the result of trying to live independently … in a reality that was never designed for it?

We Were Never Meant to Be Self-Generating

The opening pages of Scripture present a reality that’s both simple and profound. God creates humanity in his image—the imago Dei—not as isolated individuals, but as a unified humanity that reflects him.

This isn’t just a statement about value or dignity. It’s a statement about function: Human beings were created to reflect God, not to generate their own identity.

But that’s not how we tend to think about ourselves.

We often assume identity is something we discover within—something we define, refine and project outward. Something we aspire to and build over time.

The biblical picture turns that assumption upside down.

We were designed to receive our identity, meaning, purpose and passion from outside ourselves—from God. Not with God’s help. Not partially. Not independently.

Completely dependent.

As Richard Lints puts it, our identity as image bearers is inherently dependent: An image has no identity apart from what it reflects. But he goes further, clarifying what that actually means for how we live:

“People, who are created as divine image bearers, are also capable of reflecting the created order. Thus humans may be said to have a reflective identity. In some sense they find meaning outside themselves by virtue of what they reflect.”1

That phrase—reflective identity—gets at the heart of it:

• We don’t design ourselves, God does.

• We don’t generate meaning; we reflect it.

• We don’t originate purpose, we receive it.

• We don’t define ourselves from within, we become who we are by who we’re connected to.

Which leads to something we don’t naturally want to accept: We don’t have the capacity to define ourselves independently.

We were never meant to.

Dependence Isn’t a Weakness—It’s Reality

If that feels unsettling, you’re not alone. Dependence sounds like vulnerability. Exposure. Risk. It feels like losing control.

In many ways, it is.

But it’s not a flaw in the system—it is the system.

Jesus makes this explicit in one of his simplest and most familiar illustrations:

“I am the vine; you are the branches … apart from me you can do nothing.”
(John 15.5)

We tend to hear this in terms of Western interpretative themes. Like productivity, for example: as if Jesus is saying “You won’t be very effective without me.” Another is intimacy, as if we’ll experience higher levels of connection with him by emotionally drawing near to Jesus.

Both of these interpretations miss the boat, however. They end up sustaining a false perspective that Jesus is some kind of superpower, or on-call genie; a lifeline when we need him most.

Jesus is actually saying something far more fundamental: A branch doesn’t just struggle to produce fruit on its own—it has no life in itself at all. It doesn’t even qualify as a branch when it’s disconnected.

Picture the contrast. A branch filled with grapes—alive, full, fruitful—isn’t impressive because of what it produces on its own. It’s impressive because of what it’s connected to. The life of the vine is flowing through it, producing something the branch could never generate by itself.

Now picture a branch cut off from that vine. It may still look like a branch, but it’s already lost its identity. No matter how much effort it exerts, it can’t produce fruit. Not because it’s trying poorly—but because it’s no longer connected to the source of life.

That’s not just an agricultural metaphor. It’s an identity statement. We don’t occasionally depend on God. We are dependent, as an existential reality.

The only question is whether we recognize it—or try to live as if it’s not true.

The Kind of Life We Can Barely Imagine

Before anything went wrong—before sin, shame and fear—humanity lived in this state of dependence. And they weren’t even aware of it.

Adam and Eve weren’t trying to depend on God. They weren’t striving for it or working to maintain it. It was simply reality. They lived in complete trust, with no competing allegiances and no internal conflict.

They were both fully known and fully exposed—“naked and without shame.” There was no fear of loss, no instinct for self-protection; no anxiety about the future. They had no need to generate their own identity or meaning, because everything they needed was already being received.

They lacked nothing.

Perhaps most striking of all, they had no awareness that independence was even an option. That’s how complete their dependence was.

Why This Feels So Foreign to Us

That kind of life feels almost impossible for us to imagine—not because it’s unrealistic, but because it’s unfamiliar.

We live in a world where independence is assumed. We plan our lives, manage our outcomes, hedge against risk and protect ourselves—physically, emotionally, relationally, financially. Even (or particularly) spiritually.

Underneath the ebbs and flows of life, we retain control of our identity. We see ourselves as fundamentally self-directed people who include God, rather than dependent beings whose first belief is that we receive everything from him.

This is where the distinction becomes more than theoretical. Do we see ourselves as independent beings who occasionally depend on God? Or as dependent beings who have no identity apart from him?

This isn’t nuance. It’s the difference between managing a relationship with God and being defined by it.

The Weight of That Choice

This is where the tension shows up.

Because if we’re honest, most of us don’t want to be dependent. We might say we do, or believe we should be. But the idea of receiving our identity, meaning, purpose and passion only from God can be threatening.

What happens to our control? Our plans? What happens to the version of ourselves we’ve worked so hard to build?

These aren’t abstract concerns. They expose something deeper: We don’t just struggle to practice dependence—we struggle to desire it.

And that resistance matters. Because if dependence is who we were created to be, then our hesitation reveals how deeply we’ve come to identify ourselves as independent.

Why This Matters More Than We Think

At the same time, there’s something in us that resists dismissing this entirely.

We feel it in moments we don’t fully understand—when life slows down just enough for us to notice that something’s missing. It’s that subtle, persistent sense that we’re carrying more than we were meant to carry; that we’re responsible for more than we were designed to manage.

We’ve learned to live with it, so it feels normal. But what if that tension is the result of trying to function independently in a reality that was designed for dependence?

That possibility shifts how we approach everything. Because it means the issue isn’t primarily what we’re doing—it’s how we’re existing. So the invitation in front of us isn’t to become more disciplined or even more “spiritual.” It’s to reconsider something far more foundational: what it means to be human.

This invitation is about shifting away from seeing ourselves as independent individuals, who generate our identity and meaning from within and then incorporate God into our lives. It’s about seeing ourselves as dependent beings that reflect what we’ve received and live together as extensions of him in our world.

That’s not an easy shift to explore. It presses against instincts we’ve relied on for most of our lives. It challenges assumptions that feel obvious—even necessary. But if dependence is who we were created to be, then this isn’t optional. It’s reality—whether we embrace it or not.

And that raises a simple but weighty question: Are we willing to explore what it means to live like it’s true?

A Simple Practice: Relearning Dependence

Before moving on, it’s worth slowing down enough to engage this personally—not as a concept, but as a reality.

Set aside 5–10 minutes with no agenda and no checklist. Sit quietly and ask:

“God, what does it mean that I was created to receive all of my identity, meaning, purpose and passion from you?”

Pay attention to what surfaces—not just your thoughts, but your reactions.

• Where do you feel resistance?

• Where do you feel curiosity?

• Where do you feel discomfort?

Don’t rush to resolve it. Just notice it.

Then ask:

“What part of me still wants to define myself on my own?”

Let whatever comes to mind surface without forcing or controlling it—and certainly without judging it.

Then move to the next question:

“What would it look like for me to depend on you—not occasionally, but completely?”

You may not have clear answers, and that’s okay. This isn’t about solving something. It’s about becoming aware of something that’s already true.

Finally, ask:

“How can I pass this on to others, and make disciples that receive their identity, meaning, purpose and passion from Jesus?”

This is the ultimate outcome of being dependent: being able to reproduce this same identity in others, for the sake of the gospel and the kingdom.

Final Thoughts

We don’t become dependent.

We are dependent.

The question is whether we’re willing to see it—and explore what that means. Because if this is who we were made to be, then everything about how we live may need to change.

Peace be with you …

Leave a comment

Footnotes

“I don’t care about knowing how my brain works … I just think.”

This was one church leader’s initial reaction to my content on the church’s thought habits. “I have to fight off the urge not to care.”

I appreciated his transparency … and I understand his point: If we’re satisfied with how we think, why take the time to check under the hood of our thinking?

But that reaction actually proves the point—because the way we think has already shaped what and how we want to engage. Saul, Israel’s first king, is a sad but real life example of this.

Note: This is a paid-subscriber follow-up to a previous article, The Lens We Don’t Know We’re Looking Through. It provides a biblical example of the disastrous effects of false paradigms.

Subscribe if you want to have access to this article (and future articles like it).

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In the last article, The Unseen Thinking Drift, I explored how Western culture has been shaped by a subtle but powerful shift in our thinking habits—a drift toward left-hemisphere’s rational processes, and away from the right hemisphere’s intuitive perspective.

What if that same shift has quietly made its way into the church? What if our environment has changed the way we’ve learned to think about faith?

If we’re the proverbial frog in the kettle, when do we recognize that the ever-warming water we’re swimming in is killing us?

Could we even recognize it—given that our ability to recognize is the thing that’s shifted?

A Familiar Voice

It’s telling that most of us know the famous line from the poem Invictus, even if we don’t know where it came from:

“I am the master of my fate, I am the captain of my soul.”

This image resonates with Westerners. It portrays the values of individual grit and the pursuit of achievement—indeed, in the U.S., these are iconic national virtues.

Yet this creates a tension: What happens when a culture that worships independence shapes a church called to dependence?

The Shift in How We Think About Faith

Faith in Jesus is built on dependent abiding, trust and submission. Jesus’ words are direct: “Apart from me you can do nothing.”

Yet the church in the West shifted from this dependent abiding—not in our stated beliefs, but in how we process and live those beliefs. We now predominantly approach faith as something to understand, define and apply.

Of course, understanding, defining and applying aren’t wrong. But when they take the lead on faith, faith becomes less about trust and more about information and methodology. And since those produce results, they don’t feel like a departure. They actually feel like clarity and growth.

That we’re unalarmed at how easily this approach supports an independent, “master and captain” identity should tell us something.

The question is: Does it?

Losing Wisdom

This shift wasn’t a conscious decision to move away from God. It was, however, a lack of wisdom: We allowed ourselves to be conditioned by the world.

Embracing independence opened the door to loving the world’s thinking. Just as the Israelites intermarried with pagan wives and came to worship their gods, we intermarried our thought processes with the world’s. As a result, we now have come to think like the world.

So how did this happen?

The Cognitive Coup d’État

Imagine a wise leader of a country. She sees the big picture and knows what matters most. She is supported by a highly capable executive who organizes and executes plans. Over time, the executive becomes so effective that he begins to assume the authority of the leader he served. Others respond, seeming to affirm the exercise of authority as the right move.

But things eventually become unstable. His management lacks foresight. His leadership becomes reactionary and expedient. His decisions are based on retaining control. He becomes intolerant of perspectives that aren’t his, and suspicious of others’ motives. He tightens his inner circle to include only those who will unquestioningly obey him. Diplomacy suffers as relationships abroad grow competitive and combative. Ultimately, the citizens suffer most, as life becomes anxious, fragmented and individualistic.

His executive competencies—so capable in partnership with the wise leader—become incompetence at actually leading.

In a similar way, the part of our thinking designed to execute faith has taken the lead over the part designed to comprehend faith. What we can explain now feels more real than what we are called to trust; what we can manage feels more valuable than what we must receive.

The Drift Has a History

This shift made its way into the church gradually, shaped by the same forces that shaped Western culture as a whole. If we look for it, we can see the pattern across history:

• Centralization of authority under the bishops (2nd–3rd centuries)
  The bishops in the major cities began to mirror Rome’s leadership. They gained increased influence and reinforced hierarchy, positional authority and control.

• Council of Nicaea (AD 325)
  The first empire-wide council defined doctrine in a formal creed—centralizing, formalizing and enforcing doctrinal clarity (including excommunication for non-compliance). It was convened by the emperor (not the church).1

• Institutionalization of clergy ordination (4th century+)
  The division between clergy and laity becomes formalized, marking the boundary of authority and faith practice in the church.2

• Imperial alignment after Constantine (4th century+)
  The church became embedded with political and social power, normalizing institutional support and external authority.3

• Establishment of Empirical Christendom (4th-15th centuries)
  The church was established and the “gospel” was advanced through the exercise of social, political and military power.4

• Monasticism (4th century+)
  This was a reaction against the church’s institutional rigidity and perceived loss of genuine spirituality. Interestingly, Monasticism was largely set apart from the laity, who commonly regarded monks as spiritual guides and sought spiritual vitality through them by proxy.

• Scholasticism (5th-15th centuries)
  An educational approach that sought knowledge of God through logical analysis and disputation, emphasizing precision and intellectualism while deemphasizing deepening virtues and character.

• Humanism and the Renaissance (14th-16th centuries)
  Humanism emphasized human potential, individuality and human agency. The Renaissance advanced both humanism and scholasticism. It revived classic literature and Greek philosophy, inspiring diplomacy, inductive reasoning, national identity, independence, individualism, intellectualism and spiritual freedom.

• Rise of scientific reasoning (early modern period)
  The systematic method of acquiring knowledge through methodical observation, skepticism, hypotheses and experimentation. Its acceptance strengthened the belief that truth is defined by what can be measured and explained, cementing the practical trust in rational analysis over intuition.

• Reformation (16th century)
  This was the broad response to the Catholic Church’s abuse of power and corrupt authority, as well as the recovery of the Scriptures as spiritually authoritative. Most of the reformers were operating from a humanistic mindset, and leveraged scientific reasoning in their interpretive approach.

• Denominationalism (16th century+)
  Following the Reformation, Protestant groups began distinguishing themselves from each other and separating over perceived doctrinal and interpretive issues, creating the proliferation of divided denominations that exist today.

• “I think, therefore I am” (16th century+)
  Rene Descartes’ famous quote becomes a defining statement in modern philosophy, and is widely recognized as the basis for understanding. Curiously, Descartes believed true knowledge is only available through radical doubt of self-existence and identity.5

• Enlightenment (17th–18th centuries)
  Based on humanism and scientific reasoning, this movement promoted individual liberty and judgment, religious tolerance and progress. It spawned the concepts of constitutional forms of government and eliminating state-enforced religion.

• New World expansion and colonization (16th–19th centuries)
  Separated groups took advantage of the opportunity to establish like-minded colonies apart from government authority. Kingdoms colonized (and exploited) other peoples to expand their influence (often in association with the church), to gain access to resources and export their way of life.

• Formation of the United States (18th century)
  Independence and the pursuit of self-determination became cultural virtues, and deeply shaped how faith is practiced.

• Industrial Revolution (18th–19th centuries)
  Efficiency and production-oriented output—along with the centralization of money and power—became dominant social and personal realities. It has drastically reshaped how people see their worth, value and contribution to society as a whole.

Admittedly, this might be painting with a broad historical brush. But my point is show how the church was largely reactive in all these social movements and philosophies.

It’s interesting to wonder, in these movements:

• What if the church had thought with the mind of Christ?

• What if we’d chosen meekness over power, or unity over division?

• What if we’d loved, instead of … not loved?

How might it have shaped human history?

The sad reality is that, more often than not, the church was influenced by society rather than being an influence. And so our thinking has been shaped by a world that increasingly trusts independence, the elevation of human reasoning, analysis, certainty, power and control.

What It’s Produced

So now, in the church, we see:

• An emphasis on knowing about God more than knowing God.

• A preference for teaching that explains rather than forms.

• A need for certainty, even where Scripture invites trust.

• Discomfort with mystery or unresolvable tension.

• A tendency to measure spirituality by activity and output.

• The belief that right methods produce right outcomes.

• A reliance on systems and strategy to produce spiritual growth.

• A subtle individualism that prioritizes personal interests over shared identity.

• A perception that the church is an organization, not a family.

At its core, this shift in thinking is about functional trust—what we’re actually trusting. The list above is the product of beliefs: We believe we are independent beings who partner with God, rather than dependent beings who live in and through him.

“I am the master of my fate …”

Even if we’d never say it, we live as if it’s true.

What Do We Do With This?

The goal is not to fix things ... yet.

The goal is to see, with spiritual eyes. To recognize that what feels normal may not actually be whole, and to sit with that long enough for it to surface what is true.

If there has indeed been a drift, then changing behavior without genuine repentance (a change of mind; changing the way our minds think) could actually be destructive.

This is ultimately heading toward identity transformation, toward examining the patterns we have inherited and the assumptions we have normalized.

And if we are willing to see it, it may lead us somewhere we’ve not yet been willing or able to go: Back to our original identity, where we all began.

Peace be with you …

Leave a comment

Footnotes:

In the last article, Your Faith and the Two Sides of Your Brain, we looked at how the brain focuses attention in two different ways—one intuitively, utilizing identity, trust, relationship and context, and the other rationally, utilizing analysis, clarity and control.

That distinction matters more than it might seem, because this difference in focus isn’t just personal—it’s cultural. And because it’s cultural, we’re being conditioned. We’ve been formed to think this way, together; over time, across generations and through the development of Western society itself.

If that’s true, then the way we think isn’t neutral and objective (though, ironically, it increasingly feels like it is). Remember the nature and impact of paradigms: Our thoughts shape what we see, what we trust—literally, our very perception of reality.

That leads to a question most of us don’t stop long enough to consider: What if the way we’ve been conditioned to think is quietly pulling us away from the kind of life—and the kind of faith—God intended for us? And what if that drift has been happening for, say ... 1,800+ years?

This article is about making that drift visible.

What Feels Normal

If the idea of “cultural drift” feels abstract, it becomes clearer when you look at how we actually move through everyday life. Consider, for example …

• How we engage with information. We scroll, react and form opinions quickly. We rarely pause long enough to sit with something, turn it over or consider what we might be missing. Reflection feels inefficient and unnecessary, and slowing down feels unproductive. When we do engage, it often becomes polarized—less about understanding what’s true and more about taking a position.

• How we engage with attention. We expect immediacy. We grow uncomfortable with ambiguity and patience. We prefer microwaving our thoughts instead of crock-potting them. We embrace the clear, explicit and definitive—even when reality isn’t.

In the process, we aren’t just consuming information; we’re being shaped by the way we consume it. Consider that, historically, commodities were things like land, energy and goods. Today, the most valuable commodity is your attention. Entire systems are designed to own it, shape it and exploit it.1

This isn’t just about distraction; it’s about formation.

A Pattern Beneath the Surface

These patterns aren’t random. They point to something deeper—a consistent way of approaching the world that has become normal for us.

In the framework from Your Faith and the Two Sides of Your Brain, this is what happens when the left hemisphere begins to take the lead on our thinking. It’s exceptionally good at narrowing focus, isolating details, creating categories and producing certainty. It gives us precision, language, systems and control. It allows us to analyze, define and act with confidence.

But without the right hemisphere’s input, the left hemisphere tends to reduce what it encounters into parts. It prefers certainty over mystery, answers over comprehending and efficiency over depth. When that mode of thinking becomes dominant at a cultural level, it begins to shape not just how we see—but what we see.

What It Produces

A culture formed this way will ...

• Value what can be measured over what can be experienced,

• Trust data more than intuition,

• Prefer quick conclusions over slow understanding,

• Substitute debate for dialogue, and

• Engage in relationships transactionally.

At first, this feels like progress because it produces results, efficiency and clarity. But over time it creates unintended consequences—that come with significant downstream costs:

• We’ve become remarkably efficient—and increasingly fragmented.

• We’re more connected than any generation in history, yet more isolated.

• We have access to more information than ever before, yet struggle to make sense of it.

• We can communicate instantly across the globe, yet find it difficult to truly understand one another.

• Our pace has increased, but our depth has evaporated.

At the same time, a subtle but persistent desire begins to surface: the desire to control. We want control over our outcomes, our environments and our futures. And this desire is reinforced constantly by the systems we live in.

Fear—sometimes overt, often subtle—is used to motivate action. There is always something to be concerned about, something to prepare for, something to guard against.

The proposed solution to fear is almost always the same: Take control. Buy this, learn that, take these steps, protect yourself. Over time, this becomes instinctive, and we begin to trust what we can control.

Which, incidentally, is a principal expression of idolatry:

Selah ...

A Long Time in the Making

This didn’t develop overnight. According to neuroscientist and philosopher Iain McGilchrist, Western culture is exhibiting a long-term shift toward left-hemisphere dominance in how we process reality.

He traces this pattern across major movements in Western history—the Renaissance, the Reformation, the Enlightenment, the Industrial Revolution and into modern and postmodern thought. These are part of a larger trajectory in which the analytical, controlling mode of thought increasingly takes precedence.2

Importantly, McGilchrist outlines what a society would begin to look like if this pattern continued. Here’s a sobering (and long) list of patterns he highlights.3

• Knowledge would be reduced to information, while wisdom would be sidelined as too vague or impractical.

• We would engage with the “bits” of knowledge that can be grasped and elevated in importance, and the big picture would become the sum of the “bits.”

• Empirical data would be trusted more than lived experience, intuition or common sense.

• Credentials, systems and formal structures would replace knowledge gained through experience.

• The world would become increasingly virtualized, with representations of reality substituting for reality itself.

• Work would shift toward documenting, measuring and justifying activity rather than actually engaging in meaningful work.

• Technology would flourish as a primary means of controlling and manipulating life for our purposes.

• The living world would be treated as mechanical—something to be used, optimized and exploited.

• Human beings would be valued based on how much, how quickly and how consistently they can produce.

• Perception would become more binary, favoring “either-or” thinking over nuance, tension or degrees of meaning.

• Morality would increasingly be defined by utility and self-interest rather than by truth or virtue.

• Society would become depersonalized, with relationships shifting from cooperation toward competition and exploitation.

• Individual identity would give way to group-based identity categories, often placing those groups in opposition to one another.

• Suspicion and mistrust would increase—both between individuals and between citizens and governing authorities.

• Governments would expand control, justifying it by the need to need to reduce threats.

• Compliance would be emphasized over personal responsibility and discernment.

• The desire to be “in control” would intensify, along with anxiety about anything that cannot be controlled.

• Entertainment and sexuality would become increasingly explicit and objectified, as a preoccupation of society.

• Anger and aggression would rise in public discourse, as empathy and understanding diminish.

• A general erosion of self-control and personal agency would emerge, alongside increasing passivity.

Feels ... familiar, doesn’t it?

If McGilchrist is right, then what we’re experiencing now isn’t random. It’s the latest phase of a centuries-long shifting—and it has shaped the way we think.

Closer Than We Think

It’s easy to see this as something happening “out there,” in the world; in culture, media or politics. But the far more important question is: How it has shaped us, and the way we approach faith?

We can approach faith as something to analyze, define and manage. Something to understand clearly, categorize accurately and apply effectively. In doing so, we can prioritize clarity over trust, certainty over dependence and information over transformation.

In that framework, faith becomes something we grasp rather than something we live within. It feels normal because it aligns with the way we’ve been conditioned to think.

But “normal” doesn’t mean neutral.

The Assumption Beneath It All

Beneath all of this is a quiet assumption: We’re responsible for securing our own lives.

We assume we must understand enough, control enough and manage enough to be okay, and that if we don’t take control, things will fall apart. This assumption rarely presents itself as a lack of faith; it presents itself as responsibility—which is precisely what makes it difficult to recognize.

It shows up in how quickly we move to create strategy and define expected outcomes; in how we fix, solve and secure. It shapes what we trust, what we fear and how we respond to life’s uncertainties. It centers everything on ourselves—not in an obvious or defiant way, but in a way that assumes we are responsible for making life work.

Consider: How does this mesh with the truth that our creation in God’s image means we are designed to be fully dependent upon him? Or that, in Jesus’ words, we can do nothing on our own (Jn. 15.5)?

Again, selah ...

What Do We Do With This?

The goal here isn’t to reject analysis or clarity. Those are good gifts that are essential for navigating life. The question is whether they’ve taken the lead in ways they were never meant to—and whether they’ve shaped not just how we think, but what we trust.

A few questions can help bring that into focus:

• Where do you feel the strongest need for control right now?

• When you face uncertainty, what do you instinctively reach for first—a fixing strategy, or trust?

• When you encounter an ambiguous or paradoxical issue, how often do you slow down to ponder it instead of settling for a resolved perspective?

• In your faith, do you find yourself trying to dictate outcomes, or learning to live within something you don’t fully control?

These questions aren’t meant to be answered quickly. They’re meant to be noticed. Because awareness is the first step in recognizing whether there has, in fact, been a drift.

Where This Leads Next

The last lines of the poem Invictus capture the spirit of our modern Western age. It’s a declaration that feels both empowering and unquestioned:

There is strong evidence to confirm the drift in Western thinking, passed down over centuries to successive generations. And while we might not consciously and boldly claim Invictus’ declaration, there are sufficient signs evident in the Western church that the same drift has unconsciously shaped us as well.

If we are honest, humble, courageous and faithful enough to see them.

We’ll start there in the next article. For now, it’s enough to recognize that the way think may be shaping more than we realize—and in ways we never intended.

Peace be with you …

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