Forgiveness (Part 9 of 0)

Forgiveness – Part 5

At this point, our series turns a corner. The previous articles established how vital and full of blessing it is to forgive someone. Now we begin to move into the realm of “how”. Sometimes we are totally convinced that we want to forgive someone, but if we have a humdinger of a forgiveness issue with us right now, we know exactly how big a challenge that can be. If we don’t have a forgiveness challenge at the moment, all we have to do is live a little longer. Opportunities are everywhere!

This article will begin discussing the concepts about and ways to adjust our thinking. The next article will offer 24 activities that we can use to help us with our process.

Is it necessary to change our thinking? Is it even possible? How is it done? This article will spend some time on the structure of the brain God created for us and how He has made provision for us to change physiologically.

The concept for changing our minds comes from the Holy Scriptures:

“And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renew­ing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God” (Rom 12:2).

This shows that the mind can change, even renew! Also in the same vein:

“That ye put off concerning the former conversation the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts; And be renewed in the spirit of your mind; And that ye put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness” (Eph 4:22-24).

Only God could have created our minds in a way that would allow us to change them.

The putting off and the putting on, mentioned in the Ephesians passage above, is like changing our clothes. First, we take off a piece of clothing; this is where the lessons about confession and repentance come in. We have begun the process! Putting off things may not come easily but we can recognize that we wish to.

The mind

The human brain has 80 to 120 billion nerve cells called neurons. It is estimated that the human brain has a storage capacity of about 2.5 petabytes, comparable to a DVR storing three million hours of TV shows. It’s all run electro chemically, like a battery. The time it takes to communicate from cell to cell is 1/1,000 of a second. This feature has ramifications. For example, the brain thinks at about 1,250 words per minute, but we can only speak at 250 words per minute. We can think faster than we are able to put those thoughts into words: five times faster. This explains why our minds can easily wander while we are supposedly concentrating on what someone is saying. We are quite capable of thinking in between their words.

What does this mean? Let’s say we walk into meeting one day. Without being really fully aware, our eyes and brain are scanning the room and we are assessing the following:

  • Am I comfortable and confident around these people?
  • Am I appropriately dressed in comparison?
  • Do I know anybody here?
  • Can I see the speaker from any seat?
  • Where is the most comfortable place to sit?

On the surface, we aren’t aware of all these calculations. What really happened is we walked into the room, glanced around and found a seat. We probably can’t say for sure why we picked that seat, or even if there was a process. But there was a process and it had to do with data collected from every time we have ever walked into a meeting room.

We dwell on this to explain how each of us handles sin, stress, failures, tricky confrontations, and yes, thinking about offences and hurts we have experienced. We react from the sum total of earlier experiences. We very often don’t stop to think, or even put the process into thoughts. It just happens.

Here’s an example. Let’s say when you were 13 you had your first crush on a boy who ended up making fun of your freckles in front of everyone in your class. You ran out of the room crying. Then, when you were 23, your boss made fun of your freckles in front of all your co-workers. You died a thousand deaths of embarrass­ment. So, now, years later, someone innocently tells you how adorable your freckles are. You immediately lash out at them in anger. Why would you do that? You have no idea. But here’s the rub: every reaction, memory, and thought accumulates and works together to create our personality and develop our patterns of dealing with things. These are neuro-chemical patterns, deeply ingrained and they don’t go away just because we were baptized. They are layered deep inside of the brain.

We can know that our reaction is inappropriate to our current situation, but add­ing an understanding of this cumulative, biochemical effect can go a long way towards helping us re-train, renew, and change our minds. Conversely, when we have been privileged to learn obedience to our Creator in our youth, we may have fewer “biochemical effects” busy creating inappropriate responses as we age.

All in all, this is a wonderful thing. It is why we can ride a bike many years after not doing it, without even thinking. The neural pathways for steering and pedaling while keeping our balance are right there with us. In that case, the neural pathways work for our benefit. When we are working on a forgiveness situation, praying fervently, trying to release rage and resentment, then lapsing and lashing out, or crying inexplicably, or waking up in the night with vengeful thoughts, our neural pathways are working against us, even though they’re just doing the job they were “taught” to do. We wonder how to stop it. We might think only angels and saints must be able to cut through this evil, when the truth is, it’s the human mind at work. We all are being taught the need to change our minds!

So, how is this done? God has actually built within us the ability to renew our minds. Brain cells do not touch. There are gaps between them. In the gap is a jelly­like substance called acetylcholine. Acetylcholine encourages cells to communicate to each other across the gap. Acetylcholine has another function: it has a memory and it locks in patterns. It doesn’t have a conscience. Whatever patterns we exercise the cells in, acetylcholine remembers them as if they are etched in our brains.

Behavior modification

For example, it’s a neurochemical fact that someone can push our buttons: they can touch on a topic that has lots of “history” with us, that is, “patterns” established in our brain. We may cuss at them as an automatic response, without apparently thinking, a pattern that we have from the past as well. In addition, our pattern to justify our cussing at them is also embedded too. It’s all subconscious, supersoni­cally happening at 1,250 words per minute.

What can we do? These are some solutions people have shared:

  • “You can strive to obey blindly. Just do the unnatural thing since the ‘flesh’ is so engrained to tell us the opposite.”
  • “Read the Word of God, know God better, and know yourself better. Some­times knowing yourself better is to realize the speed of these neural pathways and use the old ‘count to 10’ to give your true intentions a chance to catch up with your natural inclinations.”
  • “Build new patterns, hopefully stronger ones to thwart the old ones.”

Actually all three of these ideas are “behavior modification” techniques and have been successfully used in programs for stopping smoking, overeating, etc.

Let’s glance back at Rom 12:2 and the concept of putting off and on. Our Heavenly Father has given us a means to accomplish this. It is a chemical in the brain called Gamma-Aminobutyric acid (GABA). Basically, GABA: (1) counteracts acetyl­choline and (2) sets up a detour to encourage a new path, though not instantly.

The actions of GABA are exciting in their importance. We are not doomed to constantly repeat patterns that inhibit our forgiving others, patterns of carrying grudges, or feeling hopeless to change! The ability to counteract these things and put off and then put on is built into the brains created for us. However, the func­tion of GABA is not one of changing things immediately. In fact, it takes tedious work for the brain to build a new pathway for us. The blessing is that our minds are renewable! That which prevents growth and the healing of forgiveness can be purged. The chemicals are all in place to accomplish the task.

Here’s an example of how such a process can work. There was a counselor who was teaching a man about this feature of the brain. The man came to him with a severe lust problem for women he would see on the street. He had recently become a Christian and discovered this habit was not going to go away just because of his new-found faith, as he had hoped. So, the counselor came up with this plan: the next time he saw a woman that he would normally lust after, he was to:

  • Look up to the sky (heaven).
  • Say almost audibly “O God, look what I am thinking, forgive me”.
  • Bless her.
  • And look at his watch.

You can imagine the challenge to really doing this. But he was determined to overcome years of habit; to re-route the etchings of acetylcholine in his brain.

It worked! Eventually the God-given GABA took over, eroded the old pathway and let him replace it with the agreed upon alternative. Interestingly enough, years later when the former habit was long gone, whenever the man would see a pretty woman on the street he would instinctively look at his watch.

Cognitive therapy

This is the beginning of cognitive therapy. The world has learned that what the Bible has told us all along will help people change their thinking. Using the archi­tecture of our minds to heal our unforgiving hearts is available and God-given.

To wrap this article up, here are some steps that lay out the use of cognitive therapy in the area of forgiveness:

  • It begins with BROKENNESS! (See Psa 34:18; 51:17; 147:3; Isa 57:15; 66:2.) This puts us in an inquiring mindset. We realize we cannot trust that we will find truth in how we naturally behave. Brokenness gives us a peek at the years and layers of developing neural pathways that are harmful to our faith, our family and friends, and ourselves.
  • Then comes CONFESSION. (See Psa 32:5; Prov 28:13; James 5:16; 1John 1:9.) This puts it on the table that the thinking we have etched in our minds has got to go. The prayers here are prayers of helplessness but knowing that God is greater than our weaknesses
  • Next, REPENTANCE. (See Luke 13:3, 5; 15:7, 10; 24:47; Acts 2:38; 3:19; Rom 2:4; 2Cor 7:8-10.) This is the “breathe out” and “sigh” (article #2) that gives us the will to change and the “turning back” and “thinking differently” that doesn’t magically change everything, but is the start back.
  • Thinking differently doesn’t make it so, at least not right away. This is a time of patience, of tedious re-training the patterns of our life. A time to repeatedly and with practice, STOP THE PATHWAYS even when they are so natural and “feel right”. We DO THE RIGHT THING anyway, trusting and praying to God that He will see us through it.

We can rest assured that over time, He will transform our minds:

“I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and will be their God, and they shall be my people” (Jer 31:33).

“A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh. And I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep my judgments, and do them” (Ezek 36:26-27).

The next article will present 24 activities designed to be practiced in the re-training and renewing of our minds. Such activities can release us from the bondage of an unforgiving heart, by God’s grace.