The Undivided Heart

I have no idea of asking each other, but I don't think we'll do it. Good morning.

Hey, let's give a hand for the Praise and Worship team. That was awesome.

Having three ladies singing and stuff, that was really beautiful.

And a whole band and everything. That was really, really wonderful. I appreciate it so much.

Trey left his notes up here, and I'm highly intimidated because he's got pages and pages and pages.

He puts it all down and captures it all. I think I know everybody.

Anyway, I'm Bob Smith. I'm one of the elders here.

And our pastors are getting refreshed.

Even Jesus did that, got away from the crowds and went and spent time to get

refreshed and everything.

And we appreciate that they're doing that. And we pray for them that it is a

truly refreshing restoration time.

Today, we're talking about this undivided heart.

And I just want to say, you know, I know this is an awesome church,

and I know most people in it fairly well.

And it's not a church of lukewarm people.

You know, everybody that I run into and talk, they're just really conscientious

about following the Lord. and not being hypocritical, but just truly seeking

God and working and growing and so forth, you know?

So as I'm talking about the undivided heart, I want you to know it's not like

I think, you know, you're here on Sunday and Saturday night you're partying

like, you know, sailors and rock stars and stuff like that.

I know that's not the case at all. I know you're conscientious in pursuing the

Lord and raising kids and being good spouses and all of those kinds of things,

it is more about our unconscious lives and the impact of our upbringing and

the impact of the cares of the world that we're exposed to.

And I'll talk a little bit about what I talked about the last time I was up

here, which was, I don't know, a couple months ago.

But the undivided heart, you know, David prays in Psalm 86, you know, Lord.

Teach me your ways, show me your truth, and help me to have an undivided heart,

help me to be connected so that I may follow you and honor you in all that I do.

And so that's a little bit about where we're going. Let's go to the next slide there. Okay.

Trey's been speaking about love and doing our best to love each other,

love the Lord, and so forth, you know.

And he left off talking—I don't know if he left off, I shouldn't say that—but

he talked about 1 Peter 1.22.

And he particularly talked about the second bolded part, which says,

Love one another intensely with all of your heart.

And in the NASB, fervently love one another from a clean heart.

Okay, and I emboldened the first part where it says, now that you have purified

your souls by your obedience to truth, so that you have genuine love for your brethren,

love one another intensely with all your heart.

And again, since you have in obedience to the truth, purified your souls.

Okay, and it's that purifying of your soul that through obedience to the truth,

is what helps us to have that undivided heart.

And purifying your souls is a lifetime journey.

It's all the while in this earth, we're in the process as we pursue the Lord of purifying our souls.

And in that process, we get a lot better at loving one another intensely as well as loving the Lord.

And loving the Lord, you know, love, loving God, loving ourselves,

loving each other is our primary purpose here on earth, you know?

And they asked Jesus in the next slide there, they asked Jesus,

what's the most important commandments?

And he said, loving the Lord with all your heart, with all your soul and all

your mind, and with all your strength, as it says in Deuteronomy.

And he was quoting Deuteronomy chapter 6, which, as I wrote up there,

Deuteronomy 6 · chapter mention

this verse was recited by every Jew every single day to love the Lord your God

with all your heart, with all your soul and all your mind, okay?

And then Jesus said, and the second is like unto it, love your neighbor as yourself.

And he said, all the laws and the prophets hang on these two things.

So, whenever people are objecting to how rules-oriented Christianity is,

and oh my God, you can't do this, and you can't do that, and you should do this,

and you should do that, I'm like, no, it really all comes down to two things, you know,

love God with all your heart, soul, and mind, and love your neighbor as yourself.

Now, of course, all the other rules come on, you know, if you're doing those

things, all those rules you'll follow because you know that's what love does for you, you know.

But the complexity of the undivided heart and the complexity of.

Look at that. You know, it's always intrigued me from the very beginning of

my following after the Lord.

Love God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.

You know, it's like this big Venn diagram.

What's the difference between those two?

What's going on there? You know, and I know from my studies as a psychologist,

the word psychology comes from the word soul in Greek, and it's spelled P-S-U-C-H-E,

which talks about the soul.

And my training in psychology is that it is our mind, it is our will,

it is our emotions, you know, that is a part of the soul.

But then there's also the heart, and there's also the mind.

So, all of this stuff, you know, God is obviously saying, hey,

you know, dig deep, dig deep, dig deep, and love God with all that is you,

and love your neighbor as yourself as well.

And so, that process of figuring that out, what all is me that is my heart,

soul, and mind, and so forth, and everything that is within me, you know.

I want to talk, let's go to the next slide, and this is a weird, weird story.

I mean, this is a weird, I don't know what, tangent, maybe, but I have a purpose for telling this.

And I wrote down my personal story, but it's more than my personal story.

It's also part of our pastor has ADHD as well.

So, I thought it would be good to explain what I'm talking about by telling

you a little bit about ADHD and then also talk about how that impacts this whole thing.

So, first of all, ADHD really quickly. There's three types.

There's hyperactive, the inattentive type, and then there's the combined.

Those that have both traits of that, okay, the hyperactive and the inattentive.

There's physiological issues that are a part of that that most people know about,

the dopamine deficiency.

And dopamine is essentially—this is not going to be a big, long science discussion—but

dopamine is the conductor of the electricity that goes on in our brains when

our neurons connect together.

The synapse, there's an electrical chemical reaction that takes place,

and the dopamine is the conductor for that electricity.

And when there is a dopamine deficiency, all firing of the neurons comes to a quick close.

So ADHD people, if they're not interested in what is being said or in what they're

reading, it's not because they're just like bored.

It's because there's no firing of neurons going on to enable them to be able to think.

And so they are quickly distracted to something that does get their attention,

you know. So we read a page of something that's not interesting.

We get to the bottom. I don't know this happens to everybody,

but it happens all the time to people with ADHD.

They get to the bottom of the page and it's like, I have no idea what I just

read. And then start over again at the top. I have no idea what it was.

And the things that help in that situation are two things.

The terror of, if I don't get this done, I'm screwed, because that is when the

epinephrine, which is the adrenaline,

we're so scared of the consequences of not getting it together that we all of

a sudden release all this adrenaline in our head, and the adrenaline becomes

the conductor, and our neurons can fire again,

and we keep on, and then we can get the stuff done, okay?

But without that terror of, oh my gosh, I've got two days to get this.

Semester-long project done, you know, and they can go and go and go.

That's the reason why. It's also the reason why medication works because the

medication takes the place of the dopamine and causes that firing to happen.

And there's pros and cons with medication, but I'm not going to talk about all that.

The other part is the white matter. White matter in our brain,

you've heard of gray matter.

White matter in our brain is the thing that connects the lobes of our brain,

in the hemispheres of our brain, it's like the wiring in our brain.

And in most ADHD people, they don't have, and of course you can't do this without

having some brain scans and all this MRIs and all that kind of stuff to determine

it with every person, but their white matter is underdeveloped.

And so the potency of a memory or the potency of an emotion that we experience

when we're sitting down to do something, it doesn't stay with us.

It leaks in the wiring, if you will.

And so it's like, I remember last semester, oh my gosh, I'm not going to go

through that again, you know, because it was so terrible.

And then we sit down to do the work and all of a sudden the potency of that

memory, the potency of that emotion just drifts away.

And all of a sudden ESPN is much more important to watch than getting after

the work that needs to be done. The light is fading.

I need like Moses to put a veil over my face. No, that was really stupid.

And so anyway, so that's another hindrance that happens.

And then the prefrontal cortex are not, they're not the same as other people's

prefrontal cortex, which is the most important part of who we are.

That happen with ADHD people. Impulsivity is one. They, you know,

the whole ready, aim, fire.

They're more of the ready, fire kind of person, you know, and forget the aim, just do it, you know.

And I broke my arm five times when I was a kid.

And I think I told this story before, but I had a knot on my head when I was

a toddler because I kept running into things constantly without just going,

going, going. And the knot was so serious that my mom took me to the doctor

because it wasn't healing.

And he prescribed a football helmet for me to wear until that knot.

So that was kind of my life. And then like 75% of people that have undiagnosed

and untreated ADHD, I self-medicated, started self-medicating when I was 15.

By the time I was 17, I was shooting heroin because I was just on this adventure

impulsively doing this stuff.

And I also had good parents that trained me in a lot of things and taught me to be not a drug addict.

But in spite of that, I ended up doing that. And anyway, I went off to college

to become a doctor and was working really hard to do that.

I had a roommate who was also going to taking all the same classes I was taking.

He helped me with my ADHD because we would get done cooking dinner and he'd

sit down, get his books out and stuff.

And I was too embarrassed to not do that.

So I would sit down and study too, which was great, which is if any of you have

ADHD and you're getting ready to go off to college.

Find somebody that doesn't have ADHD and make them your study partner because

that accountability is one big way to manage that ADHD.

Anyway, I was still a train wreck of a person by the time I was 20,

still using heroin and all of that kind of stuff.

And I got involved with this. My sister took me to this drug program,

and I immediately fell in love with what I saw there.

And it was the first time that I had felt somebody really feeling me, if you will.

Okay. they communicated in a

way that made me feel like

they knew what I was going through and not

didn't pity me just wanted to love me and

help me in every way that I can and so I went I finished that quarter in college

and I dropped out and went into that drug program so year and a half long residential

program and in that in that program while I was in that program you know we

We saw people that were in really, really bad shape.

One guy had, if he left the drug program, he had a mandatory sentence of 33

years that he was going to do before he was even eligible for parole.

And he stayed there for a while and then he left.

And there was another guy that was 18 years old. He had a mandatory 10-year

sentence that he was going to do before he was even eligible for parole.

And he left within a few weeks. And so many of these people,

they went out and they ended up either in prison or dying. and it was serious

business in this drug program.

People's lives were at stake, you know.

And I knew that. I knew that if I left what I was there now experiencing that I would not be better.

I would be much worse because I could not deafen the truth without,

you know, significant amount of drugs.

So I didn't leave. I wanted to change. And while I was there in that drug program,

five of my friends that I grew up with, that we were friends all through high

school and everything, they died.

Four of them overdosed on heroin, and one of them was murdered in a drug deal.

And I didn't come from the ghetto. I came from something similar to North Bend,

you know, really a much smaller version of North Bend. There were 600 people in my high school.

At North Bend, I think there's more than 600 in each class, you know,

I mean, each, yeah, each grade.

Anyway, I say all this, not to just belabor my story, but all this,

all the while, I had no idea that I had ADHD.

And when I got out of the drug program, I had this great passion and great desire

to tell other people that were deceived about the Lord the way that I was deceived about the Lord.

I thought the Lord was only really interested in saving the losers,

as if I wasn't one of those, and the nerds and the people that were boring.

And I thought it was all rules and regulations and so forth.

And I found out I was so deceived and I wanted to, excuse me,

I wanted to share what I'd learned with them so desperately.

And having ADHD, it was like, and I got married while I was in the drug program

and my wife had a child and I adopted that child and I was 22, she was 20.

And we were off to do our very best to share everything that we could to help people.

And we were really serious about it. It's like, God did this to us?

Oh my gosh. And it's like, how could we not share what he had done to us with other people?

And so we were incredibly passionate about it. It was a life and death situation.

We were still involved with the drug program, running group therapy,

involved in group therapy, probably about 20 hours a week, plus working full-time

and all that kind of stuff, going to school full-time, and that's what it was when I got married.

I was going to school full-time at the University of Washington.

I was working full-time, and we were doing about 20 hours a week in group therapy,

you know, because we had this desire to help other people and tell other people

about Jesus and so forth.

Because of my ADHD, the thing about ADHD, the other thing I didn't say about

ADHD, which was up there, was that we live life through a wide-angle lens.

We see everything out there, and we have a hard time focusing on the most important things.

And as a result of it, we're overwhelmed with all of the things that we should be doing.

And so I should be praying more. I should be loving my wife better.

I should be loving my daughter better. I should be serving the church more.

I should be doing, I got a light show going on.

Where's the black light? I really feel, anyway, all of these shoulds that I

felt continuously, and I was sincere about it.

I wanted to do all these things. And as a result, I was failing over and over

and over again, failing.

And it went on for a long time that this sense of failure that I lived in all

of the time because I couldn't do all the things that I saw in this wide-angle lens, you know.

And it took me 13 years to get my bachelor's degree. I crammed four years of

schooling into 13 years.

That's kind of typical of people with ADHD, you know.

I learned, I got better, and finally got diagnosed that I had ADHD,

and I made my five years of my doctoral program, I got it done in five years.

I was pretty proud of that, that I got that done in that way.

The big thing, and this is what I want to talk about as it relates to the undivided heart.

The big thing is that I had to come up with an answer for, in myself,

I had to come up with all of the things that I should be consistent about.

Why don't I love my wife better? Why don't I love the Lord better?

Why don't I love my kids more? Why don't I organize my time more?

You know, and so I came up with this belief about myself, that I'm a combination

of I'm kind of motivated, but I'm also lazy and I'm also stupid.

And there was no other explanation I could come up with, but that I am lazy

and that I am stupid. Because why...

And again, and again, and again,

you know, when I would see other people around me not doing that. Okay.

And when I, when I got diagnosed with ADHD and found out all of these things

that were messed up about me in my brain, it began to,

it began to make sense to me that, that I'd been struggling with this thing.

And I, and I, I didn't realize that it was a physiological thing.

And you see there, the physiological issues, that it was a physiological issues.

And when people don't have an understanding of the physiological thing that's

messed up about them, typically they're going to either blame somebody else

or they're going to make it a moral issue. I'm lazy.

I'm unmotivated. I'm undisciplined. I don't care.

None of which were true, you know, but it's what I kept seeing in my life over and over again.

And so when I realized about ADHD, how I felt about myself, my self-esteem,

if you will, it began to change.

And this was when I was 60 years old.

So I had a lot of damage control to undo, you know, in how I felt about myself.

And the point of all of this, I didn't want to just, you know,

share my story because I felt like telling my story.

But the But the point of all of this is, for me, it was ADHD along with other

stuff that I was raised with.

But for all of us, there's stuff that happens in.

We don't really spend as much time as we should processing through what happened

to us because we got to survive. We got to keep on functioning.

We got to keep on with our life and stuff. So we learn to just kind of shove

it to the side And get to work Because that's what.

We just keep on keeping on because that's what we have to do.

And we don't take the time to stop, slow down, and process what has happened to us.

What is going on with us? Why are these things happening?

Why do I continue to do these things?

And so Trey just recently was diagnosed with ADHD.

And he's just now beginning to learn some of the things that impact him as a

result of his physiological issues that are a part of it.

And I know this isn't, yeah, anyway, sorry, I got distracted there for a minute.

Anyway, this is something that I know he's going to grow through in the next many years,

but it is that thing that I'm using this as an example to look at things that

I do that I have been attributing to my moral failure as opposed to things that

happened to me that I have not processed.

Does that make sense? You follow me? Should I say that again? Say it again.

The idea is that we want to look at the things that we attribute to ourselves

and our failure to be godly,

our failure to live as the Lord expects us to live,

and making it a moral failure on our part as opposed to the impact of other

things that have happened to us in our life and not being processed. Okay?

Yeah. So, like, and I'm going to get to this in a few minutes.

I'm a little helter-skelter in my notes, so I apologize for that.

But we live in this world that is cursed, you know.

And as a result, you know, this sin nature and sin is passed on from generation to generation.

And it impacts us as parents. It impacts us as children.

And so, some of the things that have happened to us, you know,

it impacts us and we don't recognize it. So, let's go to the next slide.

So, here's the big deal. This is, you know, the ADHD for me in particular is

an explanation for why I was the way that I was.

But it's, and it's not an excuse, but if we don't do something about it,

then it becomes an excuse.

Okay. So, just learning that I had ADHD. And I used to say,

get a dog or whatever you have to do, and get on with life, you know,

and the same with ADHD, same with any other kinds of things,

we need to do things about it.

Okay, let's go to the next slide, and this is where I'm talking about the nature

of sin nature, it's not just the sin that we knowingly commit,

and I think that's the thing that is important, you know,

it's like what I started with in the beginning, people here are very conscientious,

and they want to do the right things.

And we all commit sin from time to time, but it's not that that is really hindering

us from really loving God the way we'd like and loving our neighbors as ourself.

It's the other stuff that takes place and has taken place.

It is, as it says there, the trickle-down effect of sin nature that deters our

ability to be godly, to love God and to love people with all of our hearts, okay?

Stuff that is implanted in us, stuff that happened to us when we were kids,

moments of shame, and so forth, you know.

I'm going to say this now, but I'll probably say it again later on.

One of the authors of some of the greatest books that I've read,

his name is Kurt Thompson.

Some of the stuff that I'm talking about comes from the book called The Anatomy

of the Soul, And he says, the process of committing sin begins with not paying attention.

When we're not paying attention, then all of a sudden, you know,

the door is open for us to, you know, be afraid of something or feel shame about something.

And then as a result of those ugly feelings, nobody wants to embrace and endure

those feelings for very long.

We find something else to get involved in that takes us away from those bad feelings, you know.

And so not paying attention, which is a very hard thing to do,

not just for people with ADHD, but to pay attention to what's going on is quite

the challenge. What time is it?

So, two goals as it relates to the nature of our sin nature.

One is to control our thoughts and our behavior, and the other one is to heal the deficit.

So, controlling our thoughts and our behavior, you know, we know about that,

and we've learned about that, and that's stuff that's talked about all the time.

Healing the deficit is a bigger challenge. And let's go to the next slide.

And hang on, I need a drink of God's nectar.

This aspect of missing the mark, I like this definition, you know,

because we are working to be godly and to honor the Lord and all those kinds

of things, but we miss the mark.

And part of missing the mark is the part of that curse that is on the earth

and that we are impacted by.

Okay, sin nature is our spiritual inheritance. Now, well, I'll get to it in

a minute. I get ahead of myself all the time.

So, all of sin and fall short of the glory of God, Romans 3, verse 23.

Romans 3:23

So, even with perfect parenting, we would need Jesus to pay the price for our sin.

But, as I say there, nobody had perfect parenting. Okay, let's go to the next slide.

So, as Paul expressed in Romans 7, this is our dilemma as well.

So then on the one hand, I myself with my mind am serving the law of God,

but on the other with my flesh, the law of sin.

And as I say there, most of us know this scripture as well as the next one.

Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

Let's just thank God for a moment for that. Lord, we're so thankful that we

are not destined to be condemned because of sin in our lives,

but because of the blood of Jesus,

we have been set free from condemnation and can live in the freedom of forgiveness

and the mercy and grace of God. We're so grateful for that, Lord.

And this reality of this comforts us in our shame and guilt about underachievement.

And by underachievement, I mean being as godly as we, in our moments,

in our great moments, we have this,

revelation and desire to be godly and disciplined and loving and all those things,

and then we stop paying attention, and we go out and be selfish or lazy or whatever

we happen to do. All right, let's go to the next slide.

Okay, so responding to the sin nature.

Number one, be gracious in your attitude toward yourself. Stuff happened to

all of us, and as a result of that, we stop paying attention and we mess up.

And so, recognize that's a part of being on this earth, being in this cursed world. It impacts us.

It impacts us. And so, we need to be gracious towards ourselves, Not callous,

but I don't think anybody has that desire just to be callous towards sin and so forth.

But anyway, and then practice love.

And practicing love is put yourself in positions to give because giving is the

Holy Spirit working through us.

It gets all over us as we serve, as we give, as we share, and it lifts us and cleanses us.

Remember that very first scripture, 1 Peter 1.22, that in obedience to the truth,

we are purified in our soul, and then we're able to love.

So when we put ourselves in a position to love other people.

God is obligated to work through us.

And when he works through us, the residual effect is his love gets on us.

Exercise your will there was a a

slide last week that trey talked about that dallas willard

said where he was talking about our will and so forth you can

exercise your will from a neuroscience perspective there's a there's a part

in your brain that that will grow which is where the the center of your will

is the chooser of of of choices that we make in our lives and the way to exercise

your will to make it stronger,

I know you're going to love this one, is like five to ten minutes a day.

Do something that you really don't like to do, okay?

Something you don't like to do. If you love going to the gym and working out,

it's not going to strengthen your will.

But if you don't love going to the gym, that will strengthen your will.

But it doesn't have to be going to the gym. It can be anything that you don't enjoy doing.

And if you choose to do that five or ten minutes a day, there's a lot of data supporting this.

Your will will become stronger by doing things that you don't like to do.

And then the last one there is being spiritually minded.

Let's go to the next slide that will talk about this. For the mind set on the

flesh is death, but the mind set on the Spirit is life and peace.

I got this from that book, Anatomy of the Soul, and I hadn't thought about that before.

It doesn't say, for the mind set on the flesh will lead to death.

It says, for the mind set on the flesh is death.

And death is not like, oh, if I look at something negative, I will fall over dead.

Death is, as it says there, it's not the cessation of life.

Just like in the beginning when they said in the Garden of Eden on that day

that you eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. and that day you will die.

They didn't just keel over and die, but in that day that they did that,

they were separated from God.

And that's what death is, is separation.

And so the mindset on the flesh separates us. It separates us from God.

It separates, not eternally, it doesn't break our relationship with God,

but just like when you were a kid and you lied to your mom and you knew you lied to your mom.

It's not like you want to hang around with mom because that lie might come popping out at some point.

It's the same with the Lord. It's not like you want to grow close to God when

you have not acknowledged the sin that you have before you.

So it separates us from God. It separates us from those who intimately know us.

So setting our mind on flesh separates us.

Isolates us, and in separation and isolation, it has impact on our brain,

but it also brings shame and fear, which disconnects us from everything, okay?

And that makes it very difficult to do what in our heart, our soul,

and our mind that we want to do, all right?

So, set your mind on things that are true, honest, just, pure,

lovely, good report, and as it says in Philippians 4.8.

And then, what does the Lord require of you but to do justly,

to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God? These are the things to exercise.

It is difficult to pay attention and to do these things, but it is the solution for an undivided heart.

Let's go to the next thing, and we're coming close to the end here.

So, how to pay attention better, you know, because that's the hard part.

How to pay attention better, and how to get in touch, slow yourself down.

You know, it's very difficult for me in particular to slow myself down.

And so, there's a lot of things out there to help us to slow ourselves down.

From a, you know, the Bible talks about it, you know, be still and know that I am God.

You know, he says, you know, you want to be quiet and hear that still, small voice.

You know, it wasn't in the storm. It wasn't in the wind. It was in that still,

small. So, and he tells us to lay on our bed.

All these different kinds of things. He tells us to slow down and to be quiet.

You know, there's a physiological part of that that goes on as well,

because our brain gets tired on a daily basis.

And there's toxins that are in our brains from all the processing of the synopsis

being used up. and the neurotransmitters that need to be flushed out of our brain and so forth.

Our brain literally needs to be healed on a daily basis.

Doing things like being still and being quiet and doing mindfulness activities

helps you to be able to do that.

The PalouseMindfulness.com or MBSR, that has an eight-week course on mindfulness

that if you did, it would be about 40 hours a week.

And so there's not anybody that's going to do that, but you can pick and choose.

And on that particular website, which was developed by the Boston Medical Center,

which is one of the greatest Boston, greatest medical research centers in the world.

So there's psychiatrists on there, there's psychologists on there,

and then there's also weirdos on there, okay?

And so you just have to kind of pick and choose through it.

I mean, there's ones where they're talking about crystals and stuff like that,

but the vast majority of them are science-based, led by scientific people and stuff, you know?

So there's really, really good activities on there.

All right. So the next thing, as far as like on a daily basis to help you to

be able to pay attention, when you're in a challenge of being spiritually minded,

not being spiritually minded, or you're in an argument,

or you're really mad because mom told you to do something that you didn't want

to do, or, you know, all those kinds of things, here's some things to help with that.

Number one, change the position that you're in.

Get up out of your chair, move around, do something with your body.

If you're lying down, stand up. If you're standing up and you're in an argument

or in a place where you're not what you want to be, sit down,

lie down, do something physiologically different because God put us in these bodies for a reason.

We got to take care of our brain. We got to take care of our body.

We got to do all those things. This is one of it.

Second thing is to deep breathe because that connects.

And deep breathing is from your belly. let's all try this right now.

Breathe in for like the count of five and try to breathe in from your belly.

I always tell everybody, this is the one time we want our bellies to stick out.

You trying Violet? Here we go. One more time.

I teach all of my patients, all my clients to deep breathe within the first

session or two with them, every single one of them.

And then I to remind them to do this again and again.

Our diaphragm, which is where we do this muscle down here, it pushes down our

stomach and our intestines so it's easier for our lungs to get more oxygen into them.

Because oxygen is what our body and our brain needs, but it also has a set of

nerves that's connected to the amygdala in our brain, which is the fight or flight center,

you know, causes us to be like this, you know, and when we're using our diaphragm by deep breathing,

it's telling our brain, everything's okay,

slow down, take it easy, be relaxed.

So it's, critical. It's a critical part of every person.

Okay. Now here's another one that we're going to do. We're going to do this

together. I'll show you how, and then you all do it. Okay.

Right here, right now, the five, four, three, two, one.

This, what happens in our brain

when we get angry or when we're stuck on something, we call it ruminating.

We can't get this thought out of our head.

You're worried about something. You can't shake that thought. Okay.

This is a really good activity for

that. Because what happens is that rumination, our brain is firing in a,

specific section of our brain that is on fire, if you will, because there's

so much synopsis that's going on.

And so when there's a fire going on, it sucks all of the fuel and it sucks all of the oxygen.

So that's what happens. It all gets sucked to that part of our brain.

So this activity will actually move the blood flow from that part of your brain

to another part of your brain, okay?

And so it is, each one of our five senses are connected to a different hemisphere in our brain.

So the 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 is, it goes like this.

I want you to look at, and it's not like you want to get through this in a hurry.

You want to take two or three minutes to get this done. So.

So first thing is five things that you can see, and you do it like this.

You go, I see the sign over there on the wall, the coffee and tea.

I see the exit sign that's green up there.

I see my wife with a white shirt and a pink shirt on as well.

I see a Bible on the front chair, on the front row, and I see my notes in front of me.

So that's five things. Now you do it. Find five things, and you don't have to

say them out loud, but find five things that you can see.

Four things in the same manner that you can feel.

You do it along with me, I'm going to do it right now.

So I feel my hands on this pulpit, or whatever you call this, lectern.

I feel my feet on the ground. I feel my shirt, the sleeves on my arm in particular,

and I feel the glasses on my nose. Did you do it?

Three things that you can hear, not including my voice.

So I hear the humming of the sound system, I think,

air conditioning blowing, and I heard a number of people kind of moving in their

seat and hearing their clothes back and forth. Did you do it?

Two things, and you have to cheat here, or at least I do, two things that you can smell.

So I can smell my cologne, and I smell my skin.

And one thing that you can taste. I can only taste my saliva.

Maybe you can taste the residue of your coffee or tea or toothpaste or something.

Now, that's a really effective exercise, and it takes two or three minutes to do that.

And you can, those of you that are parents, you can teach your kids to do that.

That will, you know how they get fixated on a particular thing?

Their brain is ruminated. It's stuck on something, you want to move the blood

flow away from that part of their brain.

And so that 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, it's very powerful.

But, you know, they don't want to just, again, you don't want them to hurry up and get through it.

You want to give it enough time that the blood will actually move to that different

part of your brain. Okay.

Incredibly effective. All right. Then this last one, I know it sounds dumb,

but it is also incredibly effective.

So I want everybody to think of a really great memory that you have of your life,

and I'll give you an example of what you do with that, because I don't know

how to do this otherwise for you.

But one of my favorite memories, and I can remember, it was when my son was born.

And it was a crazy day. My sister was a midwife.

And our neighbors called us at 4 o'clock in the morning and said they had their baby.

So we went next door to see the baby and everything. My sister was there.

She was a midwife for them. Oh, the kid was born at home.

Okay and and so then we were

there for a little while and my my wife

who was also pregnant she goes oh i think

i'm going into labor and i'm like i'm going back to bed so i went home and went

back to bed i thought she was just you know with wishful thinking you know and

then she comes back two hours later and says get up i'm having this baby so

my sister went from next door don't anybody else have babies at home,

have them in the hospital.

No, I'm just kidding. But she came on and my sister, so my sister came next door.

I mean, came, yeah, came over to our house. And an hour and a half later, my son arrived.

And I can remember, when I think about that memory, I remember how tired I was.

I remember how excited I was to see our neighbor's baby. I remember looking

at my sister and how great she felt for delivering that baby and how my wife was like.

So excited and a little bit intimidated at the same time.

And it's like, no, I'm having this baby today. And I'm like,

come on, babe. And then went back to bed, you know.

And then we're over there, and she's on her hands and knees,

and that little guy comes out so fast. He's just like, we didn't even see him?

Is this too personal? Sorry, it's too late.

We didn't even see his head crowned. And she says, he's coming out.

And we're like, no, it'll be soon.

But, oh, 10 seconds, he's out in my hands.

It was unbelievable. He was just so ready to be in this world.

And he didn't slow down for quite some time after that.

But I will close my eyes and I will remember all of the emotions, all of the sounds,

all of everything about it that I can take in,

and then cutting his umbilical cord and walking around in our bedroom with him

and my sister and my wife and I just celebrating and just experiencing that again.

Those kinds of memories are so healing for our bodies, and they're so important

for us because, man, we are inundated with the cares of this world.

It is heavy. So we want to live.

We want to give our brains a break. We want to be spiritually minded.

We want to engage our memory in those great things that the Lord has given us

the opportunity to experience.

All right. Go to the next slide.

We're fighting the good fight of faith. And the last thing is we're struggling

with a variety of things.

This light affliction is but for a moment. It's working for us a far more exceeding

and eternal weight of glory. All right, I just want to pray.

And the worship team can come up. Thanks for listening. I know that was pretty technical stuff.

Just pray that it will help you in your journey to love God with all of your

heart, with all of your soul, and with all your mind.

I pray that it will give you understanding of your failures.

Of your stumblings in life, your frustration with yourself, recognizing that

a lot of it is in reaction to sin nature that has been part of your inheritance,

and I pray that it will redirect you quickly to the overwhelming grace of God

that is so powerful to help us to overcome each thing as we walk this journey of life here.

Father, I pray for every single person here that you bring to their minds things

that might be an explanation for some of their struggles,

and I pray that you show them and direct them and guide them to freedom from it,

Lord, as they grow and are more and more able to have an undivided heart and

more and more able to love themselves, love you, love their families.

In Jesus' name, thank you, Lord. Thank you, Lord.

Lord, we're just so grateful to you for all that you do, all that you are.

We do love you with all of our hearts and with all of our souls and with all

of our minds and with all of our strength because in you we live and move and

have our being. Thank you, Lord. Amen.