HOW’S YOUR REHAB GOING? March 7, 2016
I’m sure you’ve seen the bumper sticker: “Of all the things I’ve lost, I miss my mind the most.” And everyone over 40 chuckles and nods sympathetically. (Parents of small children would smile and nod too, except they don’t have any mental energy to spare on bumper stickers.)
That little quip isn’t only true experientially. It’s also true theologically. The Bible teaches very clearly that all of us have lost our minds. Our brains don’t work like they should. We have, in a sense, all gone mad. “They became futile in their speculations, and their foolish hearts were darkened” (Romans 1:21). “Walk no longer just as the Gentiles also walk, in the futility of their mind, being darkened in their understanding, excluded from the life of God, because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the hardness of their heart” (Ephesians 4:17-18). “The heart is more deceitful than all else and is desperately sick; who can understand it?” (Jeremiah 17:9) Ever since humanity’s fall into sin, we’ve all been brain damaged.
Our situation is especially dire because we are all interpreters. We are all thinkers (no matter what it looks like sometimes!). We all try to make sense out of life. We all try to organize, explain and understand what is going on around us and inside of us. This means that everything we do, say, think—every way that we interact with our world—is based on our own interpretation of the facts around us. We respond to life, not on the basis of the facts themselves, but on the basis of the sense we have made of the facts. We constantly live under the influence of our own little interpretation of life. And since our interpretive machinery is broken—i.e., since we’ve all lost our minds—we are in big trouble.
What can fix a broken brain? The Bible. The Scripture is filled with commands to renew our minds (Rom 12:1-2), bring our thoughts into captivity to Christ (2 Cor 10:5), guard our hearts (Pro 4:23), and prepare our minds for action (1 Pet 1:13). How? God’s word. Only an aggressive and extended program of rehabilitation can restore a lost mind. Daily exposure to the word of God. Continual meditation on the Bible. Frequent mental workouts with biblical truth.
So, how’s your rehab going?