Dear Friends,
What do perception, cognition, reasoning, intuition, and imagination all have in common?
They are all aspects of the functions of the mind God gave you to serve to help you operate at the highest levels of integrated intelligence and creative power in your life. They are the streams that are part of the river of your life that flow in specific directions when they are harnessed and used appropriately. In fact, you need all of them in order to achieve your life purpose, accomplish your objectives, and fulfill your dreams. There can be no "dominion" taken in your life without their help.
Here is a really important question so read it carefully and slowly:
How much have you heard when being taught on being transformed by the renewing of your mind about the role intuition and imagination play?
I thought so! NOT A THING!
The reason? Most teachers avoid those two areas of the God-given faculties of Imagination and Intuition because they themselves have not taken the time to study the Word to show themselves approved, thoroughly furnished and equipped to facilitate growth and learning.
There are so many areas in Scripture from Genesis to Revelation where both imagination and intuition are implied, described in Biblical terms, activated by the Spirit, or exercised by the saints, that to ignore these insights is to sell ourselves short of reaching your full potential.
I have heard all the arguments about the fear of people getting into dangerous territory. It amounts to an excuse. I have seen just as many people (and the "just as many" is a minority in comparison to the majority of people who have enough common sense to distinguish the healthy from the absurd) get off on tangents with their use of reasoning, and logic, becoming quite illogical and unreasoning. So the excuse to avoid teaching on or encouraging a healthy use of the imaginative and intuitive faculties is lame. It is the proverbial "throwing the baby out with the bathwater."
You can't see a vision or have a dream without your imagination. You can't know at a gut level that something isn't an appropriate door to walk through, even though everything externally looks like the right door, without the operation of a healthy intuition.
The latest research in neuroscience has a whole lot to say about the importance of these two functions of the mind in relation to brain science. In fact, you cannot develop your intelligence fully without them. Here is a technical and scientific description of the function of your imagination: imagination is a mechanism for specifying and maintaining a context that differs from our more immediate and stimulus-driven experiences or contexts.
I know that all sounds really deep. However, let's break it down and make it plain, so that you can grasp something so significant, so essential, so non-negotiable, that you are going to ask yourself how come no one ever teaches on this when speaking on the renewing of the mind from Romans 12:1-2.
God made you in His image and in His likeness. That being said, it separates you from all the other living creatures on planet earth. Giraffes, elephants, aardvarks, and even apes and dolphins (two very intelligent species), do not possess the several levels of self-reflection that you do. They cannot connect an inner awareness of values with dreams, goals, and desired objectives (the things you want to see happen that haven't happened yet).
There are things that want to emerge in your future that start emerging inside you first as you grow and develop and are TRANSFORMED BY THE RENEWING OF YOUR MIND! Those emerging things show up not simply in your cognitive processes, your perceptual abilities, or your reasoning and logical thinking skills. In fact, all of those things require the influence of two other streams of intelligence to be flowing effectively if what wants to emerge is to be recognized and then processed logically: imagination and intuition!
Doesn't the Scripture say that God declares the end from the beginning?
Doesn't the Scripture also say that God "calls those things that are not as though they are"?
You know the answer to both of those questions.
You also realize by now that in order to appreciate and experience the "end from the beginning" and to have the ability to "call those things that are not as though they are", agreeing and aligning yourself with God's THOUGHTS as well as His WAYS, you have to employ imagination and intuition.
Do you ever think about the future?
Kind of a silly question, until you really THINK about it! You THINK about the future by IMAGINING it! Oops, that means you do something that some teachers and preachers condemn: you have to VISUALIZE. Isn't it strange that those who condemn visualizing actually do it themselves in order to achieve every goal, every objective, and also walk by faith into the future God has promised them? They can claim they don't do it at all and that it is an unhealthy practice, and not even bother to realize they are doing it themselves, and all the scientific and medical evidence available indicates WE ALL DO IT ALL THE TIME!
Brain science confirms that you and I THINK ABOUT THE FUTURE a whole lot! We anticipate our own upcoming actions and the actions of others, and run scenarios in our minds. We mentally project ourselves into alternative situations to see which scenario is most comfortable for us to attempt to live out.
I hate to disappoint the negative naysayers who condemn imagining the future...THEY ALL DO IT even though they hate to admit it and even preach against it! Envisioning the future is an aspect of the HEALTHY FUNCTIONING of the IMAGINATION! In fact, science gives it a rather technical name: "prospection" - something God expects us to do if we are to walk by faith and not by sight, and to call those things that are not as though they are. Oh yes, and there is another function of imagination that science has given a name to, which God also commands us to engage frequently. That function? Are you ready? This is a really, really technical term, it's deep, and since it is a function of the imagination and since so many people seem to find fault with it, you had better be careful if you allow yourself to experience it...here it goes: MEMORY! Oops, I said it, and it involves your imagination, and it is a VITAL ASPECT of learning how to be transformed by the RENEWING OF YOUR MIND.
How so? There are memories you need to access that will energize you and move you forward that have the power to activate hope in an alternative future than the possible futures that the powers of darkness want you to envision. God commands you to exercise your imagination throughout the Scripture in terms of your memory every time He says "remember", or invites us to enact the power of remembrance.
So if imagination is so dangerous, STOP REMEMBERING EVERYTHING and STOP ENVISIONING ANYTHING! I trust I have made a point. I grow weary of those who have such poor critical thinking skills, operate at a low-grade of intelligence, and then stand before the people of God with a tirade of anger and condemnation, use a whole lot of adjectives to make their point, and believe they are the only ones with "truth", and operate in arrogance and pride, and yet have very little of the real life of Christ Himself operating in their lives. And they fully expect the saints to be equipped and groomed to effectively desire, discern, and then DO the will of God from their poisoned and death-giving words. The words Jesus speaks are "spirit and life."
Every time you ENVISION YOUR FUTURE you are using your imaginational faculties, you are engaging the shared brain-network involving the frontal and medial temporal-parietal lobe systems (I wonder did God make those or did the devil make those?). It is in that area of the brain where planning takes place! Does the Word have anything to say about "planning"? I suppose you can just peruse Solomon's Proverbs and find enough in there to write a book on it (which I did). Let's not overlook when God speaks of His plans that He has for us (and how we process them internally, which has to involve IMAINGATION and INTUITION!).
We will get to intuition in just a moment.
You have the power to shift your perspective in any situation from your immediate present to an alternative perspective of what the present can become (in the future). Science has a name for that too. While we call it envisioning our future, science calls it "self-projection". I am not trying to weary you with technical terms, I am simply endeavoring to make a point that the function of your imagination as well as your intuition are an aspect of healthy brain and mind functioning and have been studied by social scientists and medical scientists and mankind for that matter since the earliest days of Adam's history.
Imagination and Intuition are part of the "stuff" God put in your mind and brain to help you develop an integrated intelligence and to serve to help you become ALL God intends for you to become!
Ever wrestle with how to get from where you are to where you want to be? Ever get stuck in the gap between the two locations? Science has a name for how you close the gap by the use of your imagination. Guess what they call it? "NAVIGATION"
So are you at a place where you want to more effectively navigate your way into the intended future God has planned for you? I regret to inform you that you will have a really tough time getting there without sharpening your imaginative and intuitivefaculties. You will have to develop the courage to believe God gave you both of those faculties to serve to support your cognitive, perceptual, reasoning, and logical faculties. I apologize if that upsets you. If it does, what I am offering will be of absolutely no interest to you so stop reading right now because this won't help you at all, it will only deepen your conviction that anyone who talks about the imagination and intuition being sanctified for godly purpose is still operating in a way that is contrary to what you believe the Word teaches.
However, for those of you whose critical thinking skills, logical reasoning skills, and cognitive abilities enable you to perceive that what I am saying indeed makes a whole lot of sense because it is indeed Scriptural, and is in fact also common sense, and something that even medical science confirms, what I am offering you is an opportunity to move into a greater grace of the unforced rhythms of grace in your life. I am inviting you to access a greater level of flow and fulfillment in those things God has had you put your hand to do. I want you to be able to do those things at a higher level of effectiveness and satisfaction.
Let me drop another little thought on you about this faculty known as intuition, which is wired into your brain. Neuroscience recognizes that across every language on the planet and every culture (which means this is universal) everyone experiences visceral signals often referred to here in America and in the West as "gut feelings". Visceral is a word that means "felt in or as if in the internal organs of the body"; hence the phrase "gut feelings" has become the common non-scientific term.
Would you believe that the Bible talks about "gut feelings" a whole lot more than we pay attention to?
Ever read in Matthew 9:35-36? Take a look and let me show you something:
Jesus was going through all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom, and healing every kind of disease and every kind of sickness. Seeing the people, He felt compassion for them, because they were distressed and dispirited like sheep without a shepherd.
I want to just key in on the two underlined portions here and show you what they reveal in the Greek text.
The word for seeing doesn't simply mean to observe or to notice. It is the Greek word orao, and it means, to see with the mind, to perceive, know. This is about insight and not merely about looking on the surface of something. This is a level of perception that in fact is a spiritual quality that can be highly developed in all of us (it is also one of the dynamics that takes place when the mind is renewed, because it is an evidence of metamorphosis, transformation).
Let's keep going: the phrase felt compassion is the Greek word, splagchnizomai, which by the way is a "gut feeling", it is the result of Jesus experiencing a "visceral signal" from somewhere inside of Himself. Here is what the word splagchnizomai literally means in the Greek: to be moves as to one's bowels, hence to be moved with compassion, to have compassion (for the bowels were thought to be the seat of love and pity).
Let's revert back to science for a moment.
The neurologist Antonio Damasio and his colleagues have argued that unconscious processing accompanied by physiological 'somatic markers' force our attention on positive or negative outcomes, which manifest in our conscious awareness as a 'gut feeling' (they called this the 'somatic marker hypothesis').
What scientists and medical experts call "unconscious processing" is in fact what the Scripture refers to as the realm of the hidden person of the heart, which resides in your spirit, which is deeper than your conscious awareness. Remember when Jesus said, "Out of the abundance of the HEART, the mouth speaks"? He didn't say "head" He said "heart".
The heart is the seat of intelligence from God's perspective (and in fact science is now catching up to what God has always said in His Word regarding the heart. Science is also revealing just how intelligent the heart really is). In Paul's teachings on the renewing of the mind, he refers to it in a very powerful way in Colossians when he says, "Be renewed in the spirit of your mind". He is referring to the deeper dimension beyond simple conscious awareness, where real learning, transformation, and growth have to begin and from which life issues forth.
Whatever is in the heart, whatever is in the realm below the conscious mind (what medical science calls "the unconscious") is in control (and this has been proven again and again. So when Jesus says, "Out of the heart" the mouth speaks, He is indicating that what is deepest inside you is in control, not what is in your head. So transformation has to happen from the inside out, and it really does involve and include intuition.
Jung-Beeman, another social scientist and brain research specialist along with his colleagues has identified brain regions that are implicated in those what science calls, 'aha' or eureka moments, where we experience the pieces of a problem that has been perplexing us falling into place often after a period of unconscious 'incubation'.
In addition, the methods of neuroscience are also beginning to shed light upon the brain regions and processes that are involved in intuitive judgments (which involves the role of working memory in feelings, emotion, unconscious processing and human consciousness itself). These things are being discussed vigorously among many researchers around the world.
What does neuroscience imply in relation to intuition, visceral signals, somatic markers, and gut feelings? They are very involved in the decision-making processes in our daily lives!
Okay, so there you have it: intuition in a significant aspect of the decision-making processes you go through every day of your life (and that involves your heart as well as your head, your unconscious as well as your conscious mind)!
Is decision-making important?
Have you ever felt like there was a level of clear-thinking you wanted to access so you could be consistently effective in making wise decisions that lead to desired results?
Have you ever missed recognizing patterns and cycles that occur in your life only to repeat the wrong decisions and bring things you don't want to bring forward with you into the future?
Have you found yourself at times frustrated and in conflict inside your heart and mind because you were "caught between a rock and a hard place", hesitant about making any decision for fear it would be the wrong one?
Have you ever acted on a gut level hunch and had everything work out?
Have you ever acted on a gut level hunch and have everything go wrong?
Have you ever said, "that decision made so much sense when I made it? How come my results are so messed up?"
Last question:
Would you like to get to a place where you could "PROVE" God's highest and best for you on a consistent, daily basis and experience the abundance of all things that He has promised?
All too often, your mind, because of religious conditioning, subliminally substitutes the word "FIND" for "PROVE" in Paul's statement, "...be transformed by the renewing of your mind that you might PROVE, that which is good, acceptable and perfect, the will of God."
Far from being an "accidental" discovery the result of trying to "FIND" something, "PROVING" the will of God is based on sound skillsets and processes that have been PROVEN over the long haul in the lives of God's sons and daughters. Remember, He made known His WAYS to Moses, while the sons of Israel, ignorant of His WAYS, could only observe His ACTS without knowing how the results were obtained. The result of all that for them: They died in the wilderness and never made it to the land of promise.
It isn't God's intent for you to "die" and fail to inherit all that He has promised you.
When you are in "PROVE" mode, you enhance your ability and skill in:
- Decision Making
- Solving Problems
- Creating Solutions
- Pursuing the WILL, WISH, DREAM, and INTENTION of God in your life, and accomplishing it!
When you neglect the "PROVING PROCESS" you slow down your own progress, and can even sabotage your own success.
Don't you have enough struggles in the rapid-paced 21st century world that you don't need to add to them by getting stuck because you cannot "find" the thing you mistakenly believe God says you need to "FIND" in order to do the thing God says you are to do?
There are clashes that go on inside of us that never get addressed and therefore never get dismissed. At conscious and unconscious levels we hold onto biases that stifle our perception, distort our cognition, undermine our reasoning, silence our intuition, and suppress our imagination.
If you are to truly "prove" the "intent, dream, wish, will of God" that will result in metamorphosis (transformation) in your life you really need to learn how to:
- Look toward the future in an unbiased way
- Learn from the future as it shows up in the "now"
- Allow yourself to be challenged by what you envision and imagine
- Learn how to analyze, interpret, and give meaning to what you see
- Learn how to access energizing memories from your history and by them activate radical hopes for your future
- Learn how to train your "senses" to distinguish between choice things and troublesome things
- Recognize the mental biases you have developed that contribute to poor decision-making habits
Are you ready for something that can serve to help you in this?
Would you like to spend about two and a half hours of powerful, content rich insight from the Word and from the study of human behavior and the challenges of the human condition that can provide fresh strategies for success in your life?
Would you like to take the transformational process of the renewing of your mind to a whole new level?
Join me on Thursday night, May 24th, 2012 for a one-time only special two and one-half hour event live on Web-Ex for:
HARNESSING YOUR IMAGINATION AND INTUITION TO PROVE THE WILL OF GOD
Register right now and don't delay. This time of teaching and layered learning can in fact be one of the most significant opportunities for breakthrough insights in your journey in this season.
Click on the icon to register for the event and reserve your place at the Web-Ex seminar. Your early-bird registration investment is only $89 and you will find a harvest coming back many times over in so many ways in your life.
You will develop enhanced critical thinking skills from the things I will teach you about and coach you in during this event. You will want to also have access to the event many times over and over again and your registration fee will include getting the CD set for your life-long learning library.
This is a game-changer and you won't want to miss it.
Register now and don't wait. Those who register after May 20th, the registration will be $109.
Just the keys to overcoming your own preconditioned history of mental bias will make this Web-Ex Webinar worth your investment, yet you are going to learn SO MUCH MORE than that, and you will also come to a whole new appreciation of how to discern the things the Lord is revealing to you as you practice His PRESENCE!
Some of the most vital truths about the renewing of the mind require being PRESENCE-DRIVEN, and how few voices even take the time to put this essential transformational process factor into their teaching on it. You cannot get there without the PRESENCE.
His thoughts are NOT your thoughts. His THOUGHTS lead to experiencing His WAYS. Until your thoughts align with His thoughts, your ways will not accomplish what His ways do. Isn't it time to sanctify your imagination and intuition? Isn't it time to hone and sharpen those aspects of your internal skill-sets?
Register now! I look forward to interacting with you at:
HARNESSING YOUR IMAGINATION AND INTUITION TO PROVE THE WILL OF GOD
Meet me on Thursday night May 24th from 7-9:30 PM EST on the World Wide Web for a game-changing, totally mind-transforming event!
Stay Strong,
Dr. Mark Chironna
No comments:
Post a Comment