One man in
my church normally prefaces congregational prayers with, “I don’t know what
your need is, but God knows. Whatever your need is, bring it to God.” The
invitation is stated in such a way that my thoughts always turn toward material,
financial, physical or emotional needs. At that particular moment in the worship
service the thought of bringing spiritual needs to the Lord never occurs to me.
Today we believers rarely talk to one another about our spiritual needs, but that
is not the example we see portrayed in the New Testament where we hear, “Lord
increase my faith…help me in my unbelief...give me this living water…show us
the Son…tell me so I can believe…what must I do to be saved?”
1 comment:
Gail;
-----”Out of sight, out of mind,” seems to be the most operative principle of this matter. Spiritual material is certainly out of sight; it is not every day when one sees an angel. Even spiritual affairs are out of sight at least of those whose “eyes to see” have 80/80 or worse vision, for too many fail to address their lives through Biblically supplied meanings.
-----The stream of consciousness is a flow of thoughts and feelings, each having been stimulated by either the ones before it, or by something the eyes or ears are seeing or hearing. The frontal lobes of the brain are the decision center of the mind. The more that center is purposefully used, the more a person is able to choose the thoughts and feelings stimulated into his consciousness for continuation, or reject them out of the stream. The warehouse of thoughts and feelings available to be stimulated into the stream of consciousness, as well as those deep in the warehouse interacting to do the stimulation, together form what is called “availability bias”. In other words, the more time spent in Hustler, Playboy, and Outdoor Life, the more the mind will be made of those thoughts and ideas, and therefore, the more the world will look like those things to the individual and the more will be the need to experience, interact, and understand that world in those terms. This is the closest you can bring “your own reality” into existence.
-----But those around you can bring it even closer. The more people who are like minded by like practices express like ideas and do like things making a culture selected from only certain kinds of thoughts and feelings, like Hustler, Playboy, and Outdoor Life kinds of thoughts and feelings. Moreover, the Hustler, Playboy, Outdoor Life and the Money, Forbes, Wall Street Journal and the People, Washington Times, Cosmopolitan kinds of thoughts and feelings all together arise from what is called an “availability cascade” of influential thoughts and feelings, sort of a shopping center of commonly thought and felt ideas served up to us through showroom windows. -----I remember when I was a child, thoughts and feelings of respectability for and acceptance of Christianity Today, Charisma, and Guideposts were far more present in the availability cascade. And they are still around. But, since human nature is the individual’s stream of consciousness being highly stimulated into the same thoughts and feelings as what his eyes see and his ears hear spoken and presented around him most often (availability cascade,) slowly spirituality has taken a back seat in our culture to lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes, and the pride of life.
-----If we are not sober minded, then our minds become made of what mostly makes the culture. But merely because we are caught up in this cascading flood of unspiritual thoughts and feelings does not mean we can not, moment by moment, day by day, use those frontal lobes to carefully choose which thoughts and feelings will eventually become stocked full up into the warehouses of our hearts and minds. If we give our minds to the availability cascade of thoughts and feelings presented in the Bible and lived out in the expressions of a community of Godly people gathering regularly, our warehouses will stock up with spirituality, and our streams of consciousness will flow out from there streams of refreshing waters. “Righteousness guards him whose way is upright, but sin overthrows the wicked.” (Prov 13:6) “The highway of the upright turns aside from evil; he who guards his way preserves his life.” (Prov 16:17) “Keep your heart with all vigilance; for from it flow the springs of life.” (Prov 4:23)
Love you all,
Steve Corey
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