Thought Hunter

Over the last number of chapels the president of the Bible college I teach at has done a series of sermons on thinking biblically. They have been insightful and thought-provoking, and have challenged me to engage my mind around various topics, including thinking biblically about thinking itself. I have deeply appreciated his clear and thoughtful messages. (You can listen to them here.)

His messages have reminded me of the day that I first thought about thinking biblically. That day changed my life.

On that day, I read the words of Paul in 2 Corinthians 10:5: "We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ." Those words revolutionised my life.

I don't know if I have a particularly busy mind, or if maybe I'm half a step away from barking mad, but my mind is generally populated by many thoughts -- so many thoughts that when someone asks me what I'm thinking, I mentally freeze, because trying to explain my thoughts out loud would take far too long than most people have patience for. Or maybe I really am half a step away from barking mad, because I have had more than a fair share of folks who say to me, "You really think about stuff like that?" Haha, no, not really. (But ... yes ....) But at the time that I read Paul's words, all those busy and crazy thoughts felt like weapons that battered and assaulted my heart and soul.

I had no idea that I could do anything about it.

I had this idea that a thought thunk (how's that for good grammar?) was a thought that had to be entertained. Entertained doesn't seem the right word because it was anything but entertaining. But I lived by the notion that if a thought had entered my head it must somehow be real, or have power, or it meant that I really believed it. I couldn't help what I thought. Basically, if the thought was in my head, I felt powerless to do anything about it, and it was free to run around in there and wreak havoc on my heart and soul.

Because an awful lot of the thoughts that were in my head were pure junk. Garbage. Trash. Graffiti that coated the inside of my skull. Thoughts about who I was. Who God was. Thoughts about terrible things that could happen to me, to my loved ones. Thoughts about terrible things I could do. Might do. Probably was already doing. I have a vivid imagination, and I was a prisoner to my imagination. I was afraid of what was inside my own head.

And then I read Paul's wonderful, wonderful words in 2 Corinthians 10:5. It was like cool balm on a sunburn.

"Take every thought captive" -- I read those words and I realised that was living my life backwards. My thoughts were taking me captive. But Paul said that I could take my thoughts captive. A thought thunk was not a thought to be taken seriously, but a thought to be captured. Just because a thought was running around in my head did not mean that I had to entertain it for a single second. I was in control, not my imagination.

And then the rest of the verse: Paul talked about demolishing arguments and retentions that set themselves up against God, making my thoughts obedient to Christ. That meant that my thoughts were weaklings, or at most, blustering bullies with little backbone. I could stand up to them. In Christ, I could demolish my thoughts and I could change my thoughts. I could make them obedient to Christ. Sometimes, a thought thunk had to be given the boot.

So that day, I started to go on a thought hunt. I started to think about my thinking. The moment I became aware of a thought running around in my head, I captured it. (Ok, maybe I am barking mad, but I actually imagined the thought as a wild animal and I would imagine myself hunting it down and trapping it.) Then I would examine it. Sometimes the thoughts I had captured had to be made obedient to Christ. That thought about something horrible happening to myself or one of my loved ones? I captured it. I examined it. Could something horrible happen? Sure. But how do I make that thought obedient to Christ? I bring it to him. I pray. Lord, you know me and my loved ones. You hold us in your hands. I'm taking this thought and making it obedient to you. Take care of us. Sometimes the thoughts needed to be given the boot. That sin that just crossed my mind? Uh-uh. Nope. Not happening. This thought is not obedient to Christ. Out it goes. And every once in while, a thought that was running around in my head was obedient to Christ and brought about conviction and repentance and a renewed commitment to Jesus. That niggling sense of guilt for snapping at that friend? That continued prodding that I should get in touch with the person who has been going through a hard time? Those are true and right thoughts that spur me to true and right action.

It took time. It took loads of time. Not days, not months, but years. There was a lot of graffiti. There were years of letting my thoughts run riot. They were not easily caught. And it is an ongoing process. Like I said, I have a busy mind and an overactive imagination. It would be easy to slide back, to think, I've got this now. I'm good. But that thought, too, needs to be taken captive and made obedient to Christ. So it's not a finished project, nor, I'm sure, shall it ever be. I won't be done till I'm dead.

But it has made living inside my head less discordant. There is less cacophony and more harmony. And I am no longer afraid of what is inside my head. Just because I think a thought does not mean I need to think about it. Much of what I think can be immediately discarded. It is junk mail, and I do not need to open it, look at it, or let it pile up. It goes straight to the shredder. I don't fear it anymore. I just do what Paul says, and demolish any argument or pretension that sets itself up against God, and take the thought captive and make it obedient to Christ. I cannot stop a thought from entering my head, but I can certainly help what I think. A thought thunk can be thrown out.

I've become a thought hunter, and Christ has set me free.

I Feel

Have you ever noticed how language changes?

There was a time when we would say something like this: "I think it's going to rain this afternoon."

Now we say, "I feel like it's going to rain this afternoon."

So what, you say? What does that matter? Perhaps, with regard to the rain, it doesn't matter. Perhaps I notice the thickening clouds and the rising wind, and I infer that rain is coming (thinking). Or perhaps my arthritic knees ache, and I truly do feel like it's going to rain. But with regard to the change in language, it matters a lot. It matters because thinking and feeling are not the same thing, but we have conflated them and it has changed how we view reality. We don't think anymore. We only feel, and we create a "reality" based on our feelings.

I feel like no one loves me.
I feel like God has abandoned me.
I don't feel like God has forgiven me.
I feel like I can't do anything.
I'm sure you can keep going with your own list of "feel likes".

But the truth is that none of that is true.
There are people who love me and who love me deeply, whether or not I feel loved.
God will never abandon me, whether or not I feel abandoned.
I am forgiven, whether or not I feel forgiven.
I can do things, many things, and I can do all things in Christ who gives me strength, whether or not I feel any of it.

Ah, you say, but I don't feel it.

To which I say, So what?

Since when did what I feel become more important than what I know? Since when did my emotions become what dictates reality rather than what is actually true? Since when do my feelings override my thinking?

The fact is that the stuff that runs around inside my head is often simply blatantly untrue. Just because I feel something does not make it fact. I notice this all the time with my horse. My horse feels like the jacket that is lying on the ground is a horse-eating dragon that is waiting to kill him. He feels like the garden hose is a python ready to wrap around his ribs and crush him to death. He feels like the garage door that rattles in the wind is concealing a tiger ready to leap upon him and tear his throat out. But none of what he feels is true, and it is my job, as a rational, mature, thinking human being to help him to navigate the real world, not the world of his feelings. So we don't run away from jackets, because despite how he feels about them, jackets are not dangerous. We don't leap over garden hoses; we step over them sanely, because regardless of how he feels about them, garden hoses are not a threat. We go back to the end of the arena where the garage doors rattle, and we do it again and again and again, because even though he feels afraid, there is no reason to be afraid.

Now, I do not punish my horse for his feelings. I understand them. I understand that he is afraid of (or at least nervous about) jackets and hoses and rattling doors. I don't discount his feelings. I acknowledge them. I might even say to him (though he understands not a word), "Buddy, I know you're afraid of that, but you don't need to be afraid." He may not understand the words, but he understands the tone and the body language. I respect his feelings, but I do not allow his feelings to dictate his reality. Eventually, we will walk past the jacket or the hose or the garage door.

I am really no different from my horse. "I feel like no one loves me" is no different than "I feel like that jacket is going to leap up and eat me." "I feel like God has abandoned me" is no different than "I feel like that door is rattling because a tiger is behind it". "I feel unforgiven" is no different than "I feel like that hose is going to swallow me whole". My feelings do not dictate reality. But here's the difference: my horse is just a dumb animal. He does not possess the ability to think logically. He depends on me to do that for him. But I do have the ability to think. So why don't I?

Why do I think that it is ok to just go with my feelings, because after all, I've felt them? Why am I content to act like a dumb beast? How has it come to be that I act and talk like relying on my feelings is the better option and have stopped talking about what I think and say instead, "I feel like ..."?

My feelings are important. They are a God-given gift. I strongly believe that there are no such things as good and bad feelings, only good-feeling feelings and bad-feeling feelings. I strongly believe that all our feelings can be brought to God. But they must never dictate my reality. They must always be held up to reality, to the light of God's Word, and taken captive to obey Christ (2 Cor. 10:5). Just as I allow my horse to feel afraid of the jacket and do not punish him for it, so will I allow myself to feel afraid and not punish myself for it (or fear that God will punish me for it). But just as I then ask my horse to walk by the jacket, so will I press forward into whatever it is that is making me afraid. Reality controls my fear; my fear does not create reality. Just because I feel something does not make it so. It is my job as a rational, mature, thinking human being to discern feeling from fact, and to move forward into what is real and true, not to flail about in the imagined world of my feelings. I am called to live in truth, not in the contrivances of my wildest fears.

So, sometimes I may feel unloved, but I know in my head that there are many, many people who love me deeply, and I know, above all else, that I am unendingly loved by the God who made heaven and earth, and I know that even in the moments when I do not feel it.

Sometimes I may feel abandoned by God, but his Word tells me that he will never leave me or forsake me, and this is true regardless of how I feel, and knowing this gives me the freedom to cry to him and tell him how hurt I am and how sad I am by the things that I am going through, but I know, regardless, that he is there.

My feelings do not change my reality.

And I think it is going to rain.

Wearing Shame

I think. A lot. And lately, for various reasons, I've been thinking about shame. Our society is more and more becoming a shame-based society. We seem to relish the public shaming on social media of anyone unfortunate enough to have been caught "breaking the rules", as though we ourselves never break the rules or do anything foolish. We throw around words that end in "phobia" in efforts to shame each other into submission to our own personal or political agendas, without actually taking the time to listen to each other's genuine and valid concerns. And this public shaming is no longer isolated to an action or an idea but is directed at the person him or herself. So my publicly-caught bad parking job isn't just an indication of my parking skills, but an indication of my value as a person. My views on the latest political brouhaha are no longer simply different than yours but are a clear marker of my unworthiness to even take up space on earth. I didn't just not park carefully, but I'm an idiot, deserving (if the internet is to be believed) death and dismemberment because my car straddled two spots. I'm not just a concerned citizen of my country but I am a sub-human who doesn't deserve to live. The public shaming of individuals on the internet is our way of making people pay for their sins and perceived sins, and the internet has a long, long memory.

And while it might be less intense in the Christian church (although I'm not sure about this), it seems to me that also within the church, shame is alive and well. I wonder sometimes if there is even an expectation that we will wear shame like a cloak. Imagine, if you will, that a person confesses to sin. Imagine it to be a really horrible sin. A horrible sin like greed. Pride. Gossip. Envy. Sloth. Gluttony. Anger. Covetousness. You know, one of the Deadly Sins. (Oh, wait. I'm not sure we even consider most of those "sin" anymore. Anyway, pick your poison. Imagine a big sin.) In most Christian circles, if the sin were committed before conversion, there might be a general understanding and a sense of leniency. That was then; this is now. We understand that the blood of the Lamb covers all sin, and we would listen to a "Damascus Road" testimony, praise the Lord, and marvel at a transformed life, and rightly so. Grace is enough, and we ought to rejoice at the sinner who comes to repentance.

But what happens after conversion? Then, it seems to me, we have less patience with each other. We are less quick to forgive. We expect a certain amount of grovelling. Might we not look askance if someone committed a Big Sin, repented, and then seemed to be free of any sense of lingering guilt or shame? Might we not even wonder if that person had truly repented? After all, he or she doesn't seem to really understand the seriousness of that sin. We might think to ourselves, "If I had done that, I wouldn't be able to hold my head up in public. I could never forgive myself." A certain degree of self-flagellation seems pious. We sort of expect it. We expect shame. We understand when people say things like, "I know God has forgiven me, but I can't forgive myself," as though that is virtuous instead of idolatrous.

And what about when we encounter followers of Jesus from a different tribe than our own? I have heard Calvinists openly mock Arminians, and Arminians declare Calvinists heretics. I have heard credobaptists deride paedobaptists, and paedobaptists do the same to credobaptists. We no longer discuss ideas but we attack persons. We no longer view each other as brothers and sisters in Christ who have different (and sometimes incorrect) ideas or beliefs or political leanings, but we view each other as anti-Christs, and we stop talking about those very important ideas and beliefs and instead begin slagging each other as people, using ugly names and innuendos, relishing any tidbit that reinforces our preconceived notions about the other person or the other group. We rejoice in each other's downfall. Instead of viewing each other through a lens of honour, dignity, and image-of-Godness, we cover each other with shame.

When we pile on the shame, there are no wrong ideas, but only wrong people. There is no bad behaviour, but only bad people. There are no unworthy actions, but only unworthy people. Shame tells me not that my actions are wrong, but that my existence is wrong. Shame tells me not that my ideas are incorrect, but that I and my ideas have no value. Shame says not that my behaviour does not reflect Christ-likeness, but that, in fact, I am not even created in the image of God.  Shame says that the magnitude of my unworthiness eclipses even God's ability to cover it. Every time we attach a label to a person we are bowing before shame. Pick one: antifa, alt-right, racist, homophobic, Islamophobic, Calvinist, Arminian, reformed, anabaptist, heretic, unbeliever, or any of the other countless labels we attach to each other -- and we dismiss the person based on that label rather than discussing the ideas that person might hold. It goes something like this: This person holds Idea X. Holding Idea X clearly means that this person is a __________ (insert the label of your choice). Being ________  makes the person an idiot, because any self-respecting, decent, upright, upstanding citizen (like me) knows that being a ____________ is morally or theologically reprehensible. Therefore, I can dismiss this idea, in fact, all of this person's ideas, without any further thought, because it's an idea coming from an unworthy person. As soon as we view a person as unworthy, we are piling on the shame. And you know what? Maybe the fact that I hold Idea X really is morally or theologically offside. But I will never know that, because instead of others talking about my idea in a respectful and decent way, I have been dismissed as a person, and I am now wearing shame, and I am not listening to you and you are not listening to me because all we can see is the shame.

But Scripture teaches me that, in Christ, my shame was nailed to the cross with Christ (Heb. 12:2, Col. 2:14). Scripture teaches me that every person, however violently I disagree with his or her ideas, is created in the image of God and is worthy of respect (Gen. 1:26-31). Scripture tells me that I am to love my neighbour as myself (Lev. 19:18; Matt. 22:39). Shame is a lie that says that we, as people, have no worth. It may be easy, and it might even make us feel better to kick someone else whose ideas threaten our status quo, but it is a lie from the pit of hell, and every time we attack a person instead of discussing an idea, we feed that lie.

Discussing ideas is hard. It means I need to listen. I need to learn to really hear your story, and I need to care about you and your story. I need to view you as a person of worth, whose ideas are worth listening to, even if I disagree with them. I need to be willing to be wrong. I need to be more interested in the truth than in being right all the time (and the two are definitely not the same, no matter how solid I may think my theology is). I need humility and grace and patience, and those are all godly attributes and not human ones. Oh, how much easier it is to just tell you you're an idiot and walk away feeling smug that I am so much superior to you. But that is shame, and it's a lie, and the evil one is laughing all the way to hell.

Can we stop it? We must. I must. At the very least, as a follower of Jesus Christ, I must try, most especially when I am speaking with others who profess in that same Christ. I must put down my phone and lift my fingers off my keyboard and shut my mouth and learn to ask questions and to listen to the answers rather than to assume I know the answers and jump to conclusions. I need to get out from behind my anonymous screen and look that brother or that sister with whom I disagree in the eye. Even if the other is not a brother or sister, still I must look him or her in the eye as a fellow human being, created in the image of God. And, in those situations where I am trying to talk to those who insist on playing the shame game, to those who resort to shouting and name-calling, I must stop insisting on being right and on getting in the last word, and I must walk away. There can be no discussion when shame comes calling. Instead, I must hold my tongue, which may be, for me at least, hardest of all.

What I will not do is wear the shame. And nor shall I give it to you to wear. It is not ours to wear. Shame never pays for sins: not mine, and not yours.

Shame belongs only one place: nailed to the cross with Christ.

And now, let's talk about those ideas.

Picking Up the Pieces

A song had been running through my head a lot lately. It's called "Defender", and it's sung by Francesca Battistelli. The bridge goes like this:

And when I thought I lost me,

You knew where I left me,

You reintroduced me to your love.

You picked up all my pieces,

Put me back together,

You are the defender of my heart.

It's been running through my head because it is true. I thought I had lost me.

It's been over two years since I've written anything. It took me multiple tries to even remember how to log on to this blog. 

Why? What happened? Nothing profound. Nothing life-shattering. Nothing world-altering. Instead, what happened was an insidious creep of busyness.

It started off with a decision two years ago to begin working on my doctorate. Writing became about papers and assignments. Responsibilities got added to responsibilities. What was a busy season became a busy year became a life without margins. Things that I loved to do were put aside for things that I had to do but enjoyed doing. Then the things that I had to do were put aside for the things I had to do most urgently, and all the other things that I had to do were pushed off until "later". And "later" became later and later and that became never. Without my realising it, tasks that I had to do but enjoyed doing became tasks I had to do and resented, and the things that I used to love doing became simply tasks I had to do.

By this spring, life had become an endless sprint for survival. I spent my nights lying awake with my mind flying to pieces, and my days dragging my sleep-deprived body through the motions. All the joy had leeched from my life. I was left with a series of obligations I couldn't fulfil and an overwhelming sense of failure and defeat. I had lost myself in the busyness of life.

Finally, in May, the pieces began to fall.  I was a jittery, strung-out mess. I couldn't think straight. I couldn't sleep. I couldn't read. I couldn't sit still. I felt like I was going to explode out of my own skin. For four months, I spent as much time outside as I could. I built a garden. I dug dirt and planted plants. I moved great quantities of soil, compost, grit, and mulch, one wheelbarrowful at a time. I helped to scrape, sand, wash, repair, prime, and paint a 100-year-old porch. I helped with haying. I rode my horse. I walked my dog. I spent a week at a cottage.

And slowly, over the last months, God is picking up the pieces and is putting me back together.

It has been hard, coming back. It is a blow to my pride to have to say, "No, I did nothing this summer." It has been hard to say, I can't do it all. I can't manage. I feel like a slacker and a failure, though I know that these things are not true. At the same time, I am not eager to pick it all back up. I feel like I am finally emerging from a very dark place, a place I did not realise was as dark as it was until now that I am finally becoming clear of it. The thought of going back there frightens me. I find myself internally flinching, as though I might get burned, at the thought of touching any of it ever again. I thought I had lost me, and the darkness terrifies me.

So, I am stepping forward slowly. There is a profound sense that God is reintroducing me to his love. All my busyness, all my "I can do it" so quickly becomes an idol -- an idol of pride that separates me from his love. I don't intend that when I get busy. I have the best of intentions: I want to honour him; I want to be a faithful disciple who serves his people well. But it runs away with me. Perhaps I run away with it? It all ends up being way too much Martha and not nearly enough Mari (anne). I'm not sure how it happens, only that it does happen, and that when it happens, it invariably leads to a whole lot of broken pieces and a sense of lost self. So I am stepping forward slowly, and finding that though I had lost me, Jesus has never lost me. He has known where I was all along, and he is picking up the pieces and putting me back together.

And, for the first time in years, I have thought, Maybe I should revisit that blog.

It's a good sign, I think.

Defender of my heart.