Forgiveness Makes You Smarter
If there is one thing that stands out from my days of rage and anger, it is the fact that my mind was forever clouded. Uncertain. Double minded. Scattered. Unfocused. Well, ok, not entirely unfocused...more like overly focused...right on the thing that I had organized my life around, being the abuse and all it's ramifications.
Through the early days of my career I made mistakes, had trouble learning, remembering my course load and training and overall, had a general sense that my mind just wasn't working as well as it should have been. Thoughts would stray, concentration was hard, daydreaming became second nature and I would fog or brown out of a conversation. Nothing held my interest for very long and chasing down an idea was like trying to remember a dream. It did not get much better when I surrendered my life to Jesus in my late 30's. In fact, scripture and trying to understand what God was saying only confused the issue.
So, fast forward to today. Over the past few years I've had clarity; ideas form and hold and bear out to be true. I find myself asking questions that unravel amazing answers and give insight. Things are so CLEAR and decision making is concise, even easy sometimes. Both on the job and in school, learning just seems to be clicking and understanding comes. I am able to critically think through issues and communicate in ways I never knew before. Trust me, I'm not bragging....I'm bemused and humbled.
The other day, as I was driving home from a successful meeting I chaired, I commented to God that I felt smarter, and immediately heard back "You have the mind of Christ" and with that, got one of those Holy Ghost information downloads that are just so much fun!! An epiphany! You see, when we walk in unforgiveness what are we thinking about? What are our minds consumed with? What are we concentrating on? What is informing our thought life? When we are angry, and focusing on our hurt and pain, what are our brains doing? Secreting stress hormones designed to narrow cognitive understanding down to two things...fight or flight. Thinking, thinking, thinking..... all about the harm and the person who harmed us (and possibly daydreaming about revenge?)...only recreates the event in the brain and the same hormones just keep getting triggered. After awhile of replaying events, rehashing conversations, and rehearsing come backs, the brain doesn't work as well as it should.
Of what I know about brain and behavior, our thinking is couched around our emotional health. Our mind, will and emotions are part and parcel; unhealthy emotions equates to unhealthy thinking and unhealthy thinking generates unhealthy emotions and our will gets caught up in the confusion - what to do, what to do?
Hence, the starting point in healing from any stress, trauma, and rage inducing event is to "be still and know that He is God". From that point, He will take you down the road of forgiveness, restoration and transformation if you let Him.
It is often said that unforgiveness is drinking the poison you intended for someone else. People contend that when we forgive, we get peace and that is the ultimate reward and they're not wrong. But, I would add, when we forgive, our fog clears out, and we become the thoughtful, intelligent, creative, logical, ordered, inventive, wise thinkers that God intended us to be.
Forgiveness frees us in more ways than we think!
Through the early days of my career I made mistakes, had trouble learning, remembering my course load and training and overall, had a general sense that my mind just wasn't working as well as it should have been. Thoughts would stray, concentration was hard, daydreaming became second nature and I would fog or brown out of a conversation. Nothing held my interest for very long and chasing down an idea was like trying to remember a dream. It did not get much better when I surrendered my life to Jesus in my late 30's. In fact, scripture and trying to understand what God was saying only confused the issue.
So, fast forward to today. Over the past few years I've had clarity; ideas form and hold and bear out to be true. I find myself asking questions that unravel amazing answers and give insight. Things are so CLEAR and decision making is concise, even easy sometimes. Both on the job and in school, learning just seems to be clicking and understanding comes. I am able to critically think through issues and communicate in ways I never knew before. Trust me, I'm not bragging....I'm bemused and humbled.
The other day, as I was driving home from a successful meeting I chaired, I commented to God that I felt smarter, and immediately heard back "You have the mind of Christ" and with that, got one of those Holy Ghost information downloads that are just so much fun!! An epiphany! You see, when we walk in unforgiveness what are we thinking about? What are our minds consumed with? What are we concentrating on? What is informing our thought life? When we are angry, and focusing on our hurt and pain, what are our brains doing? Secreting stress hormones designed to narrow cognitive understanding down to two things...fight or flight. Thinking, thinking, thinking..... all about the harm and the person who harmed us (and possibly daydreaming about revenge?)...only recreates the event in the brain and the same hormones just keep getting triggered. After awhile of replaying events, rehashing conversations, and rehearsing come backs, the brain doesn't work as well as it should.
Of what I know about brain and behavior, our thinking is couched around our emotional health. Our mind, will and emotions are part and parcel; unhealthy emotions equates to unhealthy thinking and unhealthy thinking generates unhealthy emotions and our will gets caught up in the confusion - what to do, what to do?
Hence, the starting point in healing from any stress, trauma, and rage inducing event is to "be still and know that He is God". From that point, He will take you down the road of forgiveness, restoration and transformation if you let Him.
It is often said that unforgiveness is drinking the poison you intended for someone else. People contend that when we forgive, we get peace and that is the ultimate reward and they're not wrong. But, I would add, when we forgive, our fog clears out, and we become the thoughtful, intelligent, creative, logical, ordered, inventive, wise thinkers that God intended us to be.
Forgiveness frees us in more ways than we think!
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