EIGHT
Mapping Out Your New Mind
This and that about this and that.
Or, there are things you need to realize about your own mind. First: it’s not really yours. Second: there is resonance - that is, a sort of cause and effect that exists between your thoughts and will and God’s thoughts and will. When the child matures, he discovers all the laws, forms, licenses, restrictions, schedules, and responsibilities he was formerly unaware of. Of course, there is always the option to continue seeing existence through childish eyes (and many travel that path, for games and toys and recess are the high points in a child’s mind), but to be an adult - ah! - what a difference.
See the adults-only version in Ecclesiastes 1:18, “For in much wisdom is much grief: and he that
increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow.”
The childish mind will flee from such, back to the fun and games, back to happy company.
Patterns.
As a babe is taken off soft foods and put on solids, a child yearns to graduate school, escape the parental yoke, and be out on his own. When he gets there, he finds that it is much harder than he ever imagined. To adapt, to grow as an adult, he must embrace and practice new, hard truths. So it is to become a seeker, to obtain spiritual maturity and to take spiritual growth seriously: one must embrace and practice new, hard truths.
See Isaiah 28:9, “Whom shall He teach knowledge? And whom shall He make to understand doctrine? Them that are weaned from the milk, and drawn from the breasts.”
How do we compare the new spiritual adult to the pimple-faced kid with a driver’s license and a job at the local fast food? Those conventional staples that existed in the child’s life: the schooling and chores, the socialization, the group and one-on-one interactions, the truths that were appropriate to a child’s existence: those are all inadequate now. It was good for then, and it brought him to where he is, but it is no longer appropriate. New rules apply. A childish mindset and the actions of a child will only get the young adult fired. ‘Job gone’ means no gas for the car - means failed independence. For the new adult, it all means ‘crash and burn’.
Therefore the individual adapts: he drops the childishness and does what other adults do to grow and survive. So, what are the staples in the life of the spiritual child, and how must he rise above? Those
things that got him to where he is, no longer apply. Conventional standards, knowledge, interpretations, the mindset, the actions and reactions of the immature spiritual being must give way to the harder truths of adult spirituality. He must be weaned from the milk and drawn from the breasts. It’s tough, it’s chewy, but the spiritual adult must accept the sustenance of meat.
Ingest, if you will, Jeremiah 3:15, “I will give you pastors according to mine heart (mind), which shall feed you with knowledge and understanding.”
The young adult who has graduated from high school and now looks ahead to college realizes that the learning is nowhere near being done; it just goes on. Also realized is the fact that all of the old accomplishments were only good up to the here and now. They will no longer fly. They now are only the base for higher knowledge. The spiritual adult, likewise, must embrace higher knowledge. Christians unable to move forward are trapped in a loop where salvation is preached to the saved, where growth beyond salvation dwindles toward inevitable extinction. The young adult can easily convince himself that he has reached a goal; now that he has a job and a car, a little clowning on the job won’t hurt, or a little more for that matter. But, how does that resonate with the employer? How will the employer reward the childish employee?
See Jeremiah 17:9-10, “The heart (the mind) is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it? I the Lord search the heart (the mind), I try the reins, even to give every man according to his ways, and according to the fruit of his doings.”
Almost all of us are taught right from wrong, the Golden Rule. Still - one must, over time, settle into a proper habit of doing and saying what is right. It never happens overnight. The mature individual is seen as one who is, at last, finding the right road. The young are seen as those who must be taught, as those who must practice, as those who still have a ways to go. Though many of the young are seen by the mature individual as wastrels and delinquents, most of them will eventually become mature individuals.
They will reach a point in their personal development, and in the relationship they have with God, where they may say, as does the prophet in Jeremiah 17:16, “Thou knowest: that which came out of my lips was right before Thee.”
In almost every case, the individual rebels and turns from the right things he was taught as a child. That seems to be the thing about the teens. Freedom, self-discovery, self-expression - all are part and parcel with rebellion. But, that era in one’s life is temporary - or, at least, should be. That time may be viewed as a preparatory stage before one is led to turn back. One must, after all, mature from a lesser state, and between the rebellious years and the years of return, let it be known that the work is the Lord’s.
See Jeremiah 24:7, “I will give them an heart (a mind) to know Me, that I am the Lord: and (then) they shall be My people, and I will be their God: for they shall return unto Me with their whole heart (mind).”
We must realize that Christianity, as it stands, is still immature. It is primed to take the leap into maturity, it just needs to be given the cue. We must realize that Christianity, as it stands, cannot remain the same. It must, and will, change. It must, and will, grow. We can know the verity of this by God’s own words.
See Jeremiah 31:33-34, “This shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel; After those days, saith the Lord, I will put My law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts (minds); and will be their God, and they shall be My people. And they shall teach no more every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord: for they shall all know Me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them, saith the Lord: for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.”
We do not know everything, but we would like to. We are seekers. Much of the human mind, much of the God/man connection is still shrouded in secrecy. But as I say, we are seekers; we are undaunted, for we know and believe Daniel 2:28, “There is a God in Heaven that revealeth secrets.”
We have never left the topic of mentality: God is a God of knowledge - find knowledge, and you find where God dwells. His kingdom is within and without. There is resonance, that is: familiarity in close contact. God is in our heads. Those who reject that, suffer from a lack of proper resonance; one might even say they suffer from reverse-resonance. When you strike a tuning fork against a hard surface, you get a clear tone. When you strike that same tuning fork against the soft flesh of your hand, what you get is anything but clear. Imagine a musical band that did everything in such a way that failed to attract an audience. No top ten for them. If I had a tuning fork, I think I would hide my hand and strike my head - for I can call my head a hard surface.
How does Hosea 4:6 strike you? “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge: because thou hast rejected knowledge, I will also reject thee.”
The sons of Abraham: the faithful - but more importantly - the sons of men (renewed in knowledge after the image of Him that created him) will be like the sands in number. As an entity, we will be like the shore of a great sea. That sea is the God of knowledge in His kingdom.
See Habakkuk 2:14, “The earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord, as the
waters cover the sea.”
Certainly, the preceding verse can be taken to mean ‘an awareness of God’s glory’, but I claim that it may be taken to mean ‘God in His glory’ - as in “know thyself.”
Recall 1 Corinthians 11:7, that man is both the image and glory of the Lord. Knowledge of the glory of the Lord is no less than familiarity with the God-mind in man. People of knowledge, having obtained
the God-mind, in turn, impart the God-mind, becoming, in effect, messengers and priests and caretakers of that grand treasure.
See Malachi 2:7, “For the priest’s lips should keep knowledge, and they (the un-imparted) should seek the law at his mouth: for he is the messenger of the Lord of hosts (great numbers).”
How many of us remember when we were very young and our Dads were our heroes? We tried to be just like them and were, in effect, miniature copies because of the emulations we practiced. It is important to bear in mind, as concerns the acquisition of the God-mind, that God calls us children, that we call God Father. It is not an arrogant claim, but the reasoning follows that we are little gods, scampering about like children in the happy practice of mirroring our Father’s words and deeds.
Now, God is a spiritual (mental) being, realizing Himself in corporeal man. God, a God of knowledge, is fully aware of physical need. God and physical need are not mutually exclusive. The attainment of spirituality does not resolve physical need - as if it was a problem. Ask and you shall receive. Ask for bread: God will not give you a stone. God is familiar with physical need: He is immersed in it.
Matthew 6:8, “Your Father knoweth (familiarity by immersion) what things ye have need of, before ye ask Him.”
He has never made it ‘go away’, and He will not, for it is part of the package. God is realizing Himself into our physical need, He is not attempting to avoid it, or do away with it. There is familiarity in close contact.
See the communication between spiritual and physical in Exodus 3:7, “And the Lord said, I have surely seen the affliction of My people which are in Egypt, and have heard their cry by reason of their taskmasters; for I know (I am familiar with) their sorrows.”
That ‘whole package’ was communicated to the people as experience: both their’s and God’s. The experience had to belong to both equally, for there can be no dialog unless something is held in common. When God reminded Israel that they knew the mind of the stranger, it was knowledge that could not be imparted separate from God’s experience, and it was knowledge that could not be received separate from Israel’s experience.
See Exodus 23:9, “Also thou shalt not oppress a stranger: for ye know the heart (mind) of a stranger, seeing ye were strangers in the land of Egypt.”
It behooves the seeker to map out his mind; to know the demarcations and lines of distinction. It is to the seeker’s advantage to realize that his mind is not his own, but God’s overlaid upon his, and interacting with his. It is important to see that this work that God is working, while for God’s own personal ends, is our advancement in spirituality. So we look at the map of our mind. We see our hometown; we also see neighboring towns. We note the lines that divide county from county.
We even see the bigger picture where lines of demarcation divide state from state. We see all of this,
but the most important thing that we see is the communication. We see all the major highways that
connect city to city; we see all the little roads and trails that are like capillaries branching from
arteries. We see rivers and reservoirs; we see streams and creeks, bringing life, refreshing, and change our way. We look hard at the complexity of the map, realizing that it is not lines of demarcation, but lines of communication that make our new mind viable.
See the connecting lines of communication in Job 37:7 and 2 Kings 5:15, “He sealeth up the hand of every man; that all men may know His work. Now I know that there is no God in all the earth, but in Israel.”
Communication. God has been paving highways and making inroads from the very beginning.
See Psalms 98:2, “The Lord hath made known His salvation: His righteousness hath He openly shewed in the sight of the heathen.”
Those lines of connection must, too, include bridges.
See Psalms 103:7, “He made known His ways unto Moses, His acts unto the children of Israel.”
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