SEPTEMBER 7, 2017

“Another characteristic of human nature—perhaps the one that makes us most human—is our capacity to do the unnatural, to transcend and hence transform our own nature.” 
― M. Scott Peck, The Road Less Traveled

PROVERBS 11-12

16Fools show their annoyance at once,

but the prudent overlook an insult. (12:16)

1 CORINTHIANS 15:33-58

58Therefore, my dear brothers and sisters, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain.

JOURNAL 

The power of emotions and reactions are very real and difficult to unwind. There are certain ways that I have become programed to respond. All of them are predicated on how I was raised and those programed responses were formed in the context of pain, problems, pleasures etc. They are rooted in survival and mostly in emotional survival because physical survival has never been a challenge in my lifetime.

Yet from what I have learned about human behavior. Emotional survival can feel as real and desperate as physical survival...especially to a child. Then as responses become ingrained by repetitive behavior, the responses become somewhat automatic. This is what causes adults to act in childish, incompetent ways. They are automatic responses, learned in childhood that manifest themselves in the lives of those children as adults.

This really is pretty daunting stuff. I know I can feel and know when I start to retreat into childlike behavior. It often surprises me with it's intensity and power. However what I am learning from scripture is that it is possible to rechannel these responses into Godly responses. I have also learned through human psychology and therapy that humans really can be reprogramed. Although we have a tendency to respond in certain ways...we actually can stop that process and think through scenarios in ways that call God into the equation.

The more time I spend reading, praying and deepening my reliance on God, the more likely I am to respond to circumstances in ways that reflect God and his love and goodness. Yet if I neglect the reading, praying etc...then I will just adopt the same ingrained responses of my youth.

11When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. 12For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

13And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

1 CORINTHIANS 13:11-13