Holy Rewired - "Change is Hard"

After addressing "the problem" in the first chapter, David Phillips writes about the great difficulty we humans have in making real behavioral changes in our lives.

"We all want to change some kind of behavior that we exhibit. Many of us have a little too much weight somewhere that comes from too much food and not enough exercise. Others of us get angry over the smallest items, lashing out at family members, friends or co-workers and making relationships difficult. Still others of us struggle with spending too much money such that our debt load is excessively high. Major change is inevitable and we will have to deal with it at some point..."

He proceeds to tell of a conference held in 2006 by IBM at which a dream team of farsighted thinkers were invited to propose solutions to some serious societal problems, one of them being the health care crisis. Surprisingly they did not propose that advances in science and technology were the key but stated that the root cause of the health care crisis had not changed for decades and that the medical establishment had no solution for it.

"Dr. Ralph Levy...told the audience, '...Even as far back as when I was in medical school many articles demonstrated that 80% of the health care budget was consumed by five behavioral issues.' While Levy did not bother to mention them, most of us could guess what he was talking about: too much smoking, drinking, eating, and stress, and not enough exercise."

The author goes on to show that most people, even when faced with the decision to change their behavior or die, do not change behavior.

Phillips then writes about four ways that we typically try to change our behavior:

1. Willpower. "When people begin to explore behavioral change, one method they try is to simply invoke willpower...However, whether it is a sin or simply a behavior that needs adjusting, willpower alone will never succeed in dealing with these issues. It may produce outward success for a time, but eventually there will come a time when the 'careless word' will slip out to reveal the true condition of the heart.' ...This is not to say, however, that willpower is unimportant in changing behavior, just ineffective alone."
2. Spiritual disciplines. "Richard Foster states that the spiritual disciplines are 'an inward and spiritual reality' that seeks to bring transformation from the inside...However, the Disciplines are not enough to bring total behavioral transformation. Practicing the disciplines often ends up causing people to dwell on the pathology of the issues (the symptoms) rather than working on emotional health and strength."
3. Accountability/support groups. The author points out that there are ambivalent reports about the effectiveness of groups like AA. In general, they are definitely helpful but not enough on their own for genuine behavioral change.
4. Professional counseling. "Professional counseling has been effective in dealing with negative, destructive, and addictive behaviors..." Some studies show measures of success, while "other studies specifically in regards to areas of substance abuse show that mental health professionals often have not fared well in treating this addictive behavior...Having spent several years with a pastoral coach who is a Christian counselor, I can attest to the effect of counseling...However, counseling alone was effective on a limited scale."

David Phillips concludes this chapter by suggesting that while none of these methods is effective on its own, a combination of them can be. Dr. Dean Ornish, professor of medicine at the University of California worked with over 300 patients and helped them quit smoking by doing support sessions regularly led by a psychologist, go on a special diet, and practice relaxation and aerobic exercises. After 3 years 77% of these patients were maintaining their lifestyle changes. His holistic approach proved to be effective.

The rest of the book is about looking at our journey into wholeness in Jesus as a journey that involves all of our being, particularly our emotional being.

Holy Rewired - "The Problem"

I'm starting now on the book "Holy Rewired" by Dr. David Phillips which I introduced a few weeks ago. The first chapter is material that is fairly well understood in these days, but it's good to review. The chapter is entitled "The Problem". Holy Spirit, reveal Jesus as we walk through this chapter...

"In many communities of Christ followers, there is the belief in the innate desire for a relationship with God. It was that way in the beginning...Genesis 2 and the relationship of Adam and Eve with God in the Garden is the story of 'the fatherly God who is near.' It was a place where all their needs were met. They were whole.

"When Adam and Eve sinned...that relationship with God was distorted. The eikon, the image of God in which humanity was created, was cracked...Humanity, once living in perfect happiness and union with God, finds itself helpless, afraid and hiding from God...Humanity's broken relationship with God results in the brokenness and helplessness of humankind. We struggle to do the right things...There is an inner conflict; there is an embedded desire to live right lives but an inability to do so...

"Not only do we cause harm to others, but we also live with the impact other people's brokenness has upon us...No one is immune from the brokenness humanity has brought upon itself."

Quoting from Ron Martoia, the author says,
"When we look at human sin, most of it swirls around our efforts to produce Garden (of Eden) type benefits and satisfaction that just can't be duplicated outside that context. We could say that sin is a fundamental effort to experience something the Garden had for us in its original setting...we attempt to experience it in inappropriate ways. When we end up alienated from God and need restoration, we are seeking a return to the Garden that is available only when we are in relationship with the God of the Garden..."

Phillips continues by saying that sin is trying to be like God; it's an attempt to find wholeness, meaning and life within ourselves rather than in Him who is the Source of all life and meaning; we are meant to be the reflection of that Source. We are at odds with God and with ourselves because of the inner yearning for the Eden environment while rejecting the Source.

Next Phillips talks about the "heart." In summary, he explains what the Old and New Testament meanings of the word "heart" are:

• Old Testament: "...the seat of one's intellectual and spiritual life...also the seat of a person's emotional life and the origination point of the will...the word heart encompasses multiple, interrelated aspects. It is the person with all of his/her urges...the totality of the person."
• New Testament: "...the heart is the person, the thinking, feeling, willing, ego of man, with particular regard to his responsibility to God."
  

Back to the author: "The heart...includes the emotional, intellectual, and spiritual aspects of a person. Based on this, we could deduce that the injection of sin into the heart of humanity has introduced brokenness into the totality of humanity.

"Sin introduced brokenness into the emotional, cognitive, and physical aspects of humanity. As fallen beings, humanity, therefore, has an identity crisis. Humanity's relationship with God is broken, and it does not understand who it is."

Our addictive behaviors "are an attempt to bring comfort" to our pain which is a result of a lack of emotional health.

God's solution is what Christianity calls the Gospel - the person and message of Jesus - the embracing of which by faith puts us on the journey towards wholeness and fully restored relationship with the "fatherly God who is near." Phillips goes on to point out that "The Gospel is more about experiencing a sense of God's shalom - wholeness and wellness - than about escaping the clutches of hell. The gospel also announces a life lived under the reign of God...Thus our desire to be God will no longer be necessary because we have situation ourselves underneath the reign and rule of God. His is our King. He is Father. He is our 'daddy.'

"The gospel, therefore, introduces us to the transformative relationship, namely Jesus. Jesus is the one relationship that enables us to become the people we were created to be...The working out of Jesus and his gospel in our lives, then, is a process where God seeks to re-shape and re-form us into our original identity...It is also a process where our (other) relationships are Christ-differentiated - where we are no longer manipulated or controlled by others, but where we live in peace with others out of an understanding of who we are in Christ."

Phillips ends this chapter commenting on the Church's response: "The unfortunate aspect in all of this is that a large portion of the institutional Church has dismissed the issues of unhealthy behavior as simply sin or a lack of self-discipline. The antidote for dealing with behavioral dysfunction, according to those who emphasize only this, is a need to do more things that resemble religious activities: pray more, read the Bible more, spend more time in church...(this) spiritual prescription does not take into account the greater complexities of our physical, emotional and cognitive makeup.

"For example, it does not take into consideration the way in which our minds are created or wired. We have multiple memory storage areas. The emotional memory holds traumatic experiences, which cause a person to react out of pain when he senses he is in a similar situation (as one in his past). These experiences, while part of the cognitive memory but often forgotten, are rarely readily accessible. These memories must be probed, remembered, and released...We are then able to accept them as being part of life. As a result, the experience is 're-owned.' Once we acknowledge and re-experience the pain of those emotions, hope develops and change can take place.

"Changing behavior, therefore, is not simply a matter of being more disciplined or doing more religious activities...It first requires us to engage the deepest parts of our emotional life because it is by accessing our emotions that we change our behavior...Changing behavior also requires us to recover who we are as a person created by the Father...Unhealthy behavior is an expression of that searching and longing (for who and whose we are) within all people."

Jesus Shows Us How to be Children

This week I will quote once more on the topic of child likeness from George MacDonald's book, Discovering the Character of God. I'm taking this from a section in the book called "Jesus Shows Us How to be Children."

"(In Matthew 11:25-30) having thanked His Father, Jesus turns to His disciples and tells them that He knows the Father, being His Son, and that He only can reveal the Father to the rest of His children: '...no man knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.' It is almost as if His mention of the babes (earlier in the passage) brought His thoughts back to Himself and His Father, between whom lay the secret of all life. The relation of the Father and the Son contains the idea of the universe.

"No man, when he first comes to himself, can have any true knowledge of God. He can have only desire for such knowledge. The Father must draw nearer to him. He therefore sends His firstborn, who does know Him, is exactly like Him, and can represent Him perfectly. Drawn to the Son, the children receive Him, and then He is able to reveal the Father to them.

"No wisdom of the wise can find out God. The simplicity of the whole natural relation is too deep for the philosopher. The Son alone can reveal God; the Child alone understands Him.

"The Elder Brother accompanies the younger, and makes him yet more a child like Himself. He interpenetrates his willing companion with His obedient glory. He lets him see how He delights in His Father and lets him know that God is his Father too. He rouses in his little brother and sister the sense of their Father's will. And the younger, as he hears and obeys, begins to see that his Elder Brother must be the very image of their Father. He becomes more and more of a child, and more and more the Son reveals the Father to him. For He knows that to know the Father is the one thing every child of the Father needs, the one thing to fill the divine gulf of his necessity. To see the Father is the cry of every child-heart in the universe of the Father.

"Comfort yourselves then, brothers and sisters. He to whom the Son will reveal Him shall know the Father, and the Son came to us that He might reveal Him.

"'Eternal Brother', we cry, 'show us the Father. Be Thyself to us, that in Thee we may know Him. We too are His children. Let the other children share with Thee in the things of the Father.'"

God's Confidants...

This quote by George MacDonald is from the book, "Discovering the Character of God":

"Terribly has the gospel of Jesus suffered in the mouths of the wise and prudent! How would it be faring now had its first messages been committed to persons of great repute, instead of those simple fishermen? From the first we would have had a system founded on a human interpretation of the divine gospel, instead of the gospel itself. As it is, we have had one dull miserable human system after another usurping its place. But thank God, the gospel remains!

"Had the wise and prudent been the confidants of God, the letter would at once have usurped the place of the spirit, and a system of religion with its rickety, malodorous plan of salvation, would have been put in place of a living Christ. The great Brother, the human God, the eternal Son, the living One, would have been utterly hidden from the tearful eyes and aching hearts of the weary and heavy laden.

"But the Father revealed his things to babes, because the babes were his own little ones, uncorrupted by the wisdom or the care of this world, and therefore able to receive them. The babes are near enough whence they come to understand a little how things go in the presence of their Father in heaven, and thereby to interpret the words of the Son. Quickly will the Father seal the old bond when the Son himself, the first of the babes, the one perfect Babe of God, comes to lead the children out of the lovely 'shadows of eternity' into the land of the 'white celestial thought.' As God is the one, only, real Father, so is it only to God that anyone can be a perfect child. Only in His garden can childhood blossom."