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Train Your Brain! · Mental Health and the Mission of the Church

• 0:02
  SPEAKER_00: All right.
• 0:03
  SPEAKER_00: Quick question for you.
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_00: Is your brain working for you or against you?
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_00: We're going to continue on what we've been talking about lately, which is this whole last week we talked about and we've been talking about an experience I had earlier this year in my time with God in my prayer time.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_00: And that was I felt like there was a point where God asked me, uh, what do you want me to do for you?
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_00: Or the way he did it was, if I gave you three wishes for this year, what would you ask for?
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_00: If I gave you three wishes.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_00: So I ask you to think about that, and then we talk, we've talked a little bit about the power of wanting, the power of admitting you want something.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_00: And uh I want to take that a little bit further today to talk to you about why it's important.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_00: One very simple reason.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_00: If you don't intentionally pull aside, stop, think, ponder, dream, what do I want?
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_00: What do I want this year?
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_00: What do I want next year?
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_00: What do I want in three years?
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_00: What do I want my marriage to look like?
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_00: What do I want for my kids?
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_00: What do I want?
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_00: What do I want to look like when I'm uh I'll just pick a random age, 67, you know, go figure, right?
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_00: Um what do I want?
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_00: Here's the thing: if you don't do some version of that, then what you're doing is spending your life reacting to what shows up.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_00: In other words, if you don't decide, I'm trying to get from A to B, last week we talked about a map and going somewhere you've never been before.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_00: Well, probably what you want is somewhere you've never been before.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_00: So what you're saying is I've got to deal with stuff every day.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_00: I've got to deal with life and what it throws at me.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_00: But I want to get to hear.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_00: I want to get to hear in my health, my finances, my marriage, my friendships.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_00: And when you do that, you're giving your brain something different to do.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_00: You're giving your heart a different reason to wake up in the morning, other than just reacting, trudging, plowing through, kind of dealing with whatever life throws at you.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_00: It's scary, man.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_00: We talked about it.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_00: That I believe part of what happens to us as we grow in this life is our our water breaks.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_00: We we want something, we don't get it, we get disappointed.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_00: You know, uh the hope deferred makes the heart sick.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_00: So I believe what happens is we stop wanting.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_00: Now, let me rephrase that.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_00: I don't think we stop wanting, but we stop admitting that we want.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_00: We stop remembering that we want.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_00: Remembering is active, not passive.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_00: Remembering requires your permission.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_00: Now, you might have some things that poke their way into your thinking, but I'm talking about intentionally remembering what you wanted when you were a kid, what you wanted when you first became a Christian, what you wanted when you thought about marriage and living a life that mattered.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_00: Now, what I want to talk to you a little bit about today is the brain itself.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_00: The longer I've been at this whole game of metamorphology, metamorphosis, the process of change, ology, the study of.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I've I've basically spent my entire adult life studying change, poking at people and attempting to help them change, and of course, navigating my own life trying to change.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_00: And one of the frontiers that I've landed on here lately is the brain and studying the brain.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, uh definitely I'm into the spiritual side of it, the the as a man thinks side.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_00: And what I found is that the think brain, you could think of it like this the mind is the content, the brain's the machine.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_00: Uh the soul is the the mix of the two.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_00: And and we we, meaning science, research, we have no understanding of how the brain creates consciousness, a sense of self.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_00: But it does.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_00: Alright, why are you talking about the brain, dude?
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_00: Because here's the deal: your brain is shaped by whatever you consistently focus on, and what you repeat in practice.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_00: So the brain is shaped.
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_00: What do you mean by that?
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_00: Well, the brain, the brain's chemicals and electricity, right?
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_00: And what fires together, wires together.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_00: So, in other words, anything you repeat, the brain gets better at.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_00: Anything you repeat that is rewarding, either uh you might say rewarding positively or negatively.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_00: In other words, anything you you get a a zap out of, whether it's a good zap or a bad zap, um, the wiring even becomes stronger.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_00: So the brain is shaped by what you consistently focus on and what you repeat in practice.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_00: So, if you go through life just getting hit by what's in front of you, and other words, if you if you kind of are you're you're if you could picture your head down and you're just you're just dealing with what life throws at you today, and you're not lifting, you know, uh in the Old Testament when God was talking to Abraham, he said, Lift up your eyes.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_00: Lift up your eyes and look to the north, the south, the east, and the west.
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_00: Lift up your eyes and look.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_00: What was he saying to him?
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_00: I want you to see beyond what you see.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_00: I want you to see in here and in here beyond what you see out here.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_00: And it takes practice.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_00: It takes courage.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_00: It takes courage to say, I see myself more peaceful, I see myself more joyful, I see myself more excited, I see myself having a great marriage, I see myself succeeding.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_00: And here's what we're going to be talking about as we go forward about how that plays out.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_00: Because if you admit to yourself what you want, your brain, believe it or not, I know you might find this hard to believe, but your brain is fairly obedient.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_00: And what I mean by that is your brain, once you tell your brain what you want, it's gonna go about figuring out how to get it for you.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_00: It's gonna start noticing.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_00: Key word, that's a big word to me right now.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_00: Noticing.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_00: So, my brain is shaped, your brain is shaped by what I consistently focus on and what I repeat and practice.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_00: What if you just took a few minutes every day?
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_00: I know you got life.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_00: I know right now things are crazy and unpredictable and all that, but what if you took a few minutes every day, backed up into your little sweet spot, your little quiet spot, and you went back to the simple question, Mark chapter 10, Blind Bardamaeus, Jesus said, What do you want me to do for you?
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_00: So what if what if every day you just took a few minutes?
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_00: Just took a few minutes, and you backed up into this quiet little place with you and God, and you answered that question.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_00: Now, I'd probably recommend you don't have a different answer every day.
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_00: If if you do, then you're reacting to what's happening around you, probably.
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_00: But what's what deep yearning is in your soul that if when you really find it, you you realize it goes back years, maybe even decades.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_00: What you wanted when you thought about in your teens and 20s.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_00: This is the kind of life, this is the kind of walk with God that I want.
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_00: Here's the thing your brain is shaped, but what you consistently focus on, repeat, and practice.
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_00: What if you just decided I'm gonna start practicing, revisiting, imagining, thinking about, admitting to myself, saying out loud what it is that I want.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, dude, that just sounds weird.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_00: Well, what it does is it lifts your eyes.
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_00: It lifts your eyes out of the craziness you're in, and it gives you something beyond, something over that next hill.
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_00: If I can just get over this hill, and then it starts, when you tell your brain what you want, it begins to look for the path over the hill.
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_00: And it begins to look for, gee, what do I need to learn to get over this hill?
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_00: What do I need to get, what do I need to unload to make it up this hill?
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_00: It just begins to help you shape your journey in a way that is more exciting, more fulfilling, more uh energy creating.
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_00: Um faith is the substance of things hoped for.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_00: The evidence of things not seen yet.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_00: Mix faith with what you want.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_00: Well, here's the thing.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I don't know how, I don't know how that could happen.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_00: You know what?
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_00: That's not your job.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_00: Mary's job, when the angel came to Mary and said, You're gonna have a kid and he's gonna be the savior of the world.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_00: Mary's job was not to figure out how it's gonna happen.
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_00: Her job was just to say, Yes, Lord, be it unto me according to your word.
• 10:11
  SPEAKER_00: Believe your heart, listen to your heart, admit, lift up your eyes from where you now are.
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_00: Please.
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_00: I want you to want again.
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_00: Alright?
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_00: Love you guys.
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_00: See you soon.