Remember That?

Everyone has had the experience of a smell or sound bringing an unexpected and "long forgotten" memory unbidden to the surface of your mind. "Where did that come from?" you wonder.

If it's a good memory, you smile fondly trying to savor the experience as long as you can. If it's a negative memory, you try to push it down and suppress the emotions that go with it.

We would all prefer to have selective memory, but it doesn't work that way. We get the good with the bad. Neuroscience tells us that there are two parts to memory: The first part is an actual recording of the event, which occurs in one area of your brain, and the second part is the emotional reactions that go with that recording, happening in a nearby, but separate, area. 

All memories have emotions attached to them. Sometimes memories have such strong emotions that they can have physiological reactions, for instance, your heart beating faster or sweaty palms when you recall something that has made you anxious.

As is true with most of life, the negative seems to affect us more than the positive, and it takes no effort for negative emotions connected to memories to come to the surface, such as anger, shame, guilt, anxiety and bitterness. Interestingly, these emotions can be as strong or stronger at a later time as were when the event happened, nearly taking on an entire existence of their own.

How memories affect us today

Can a memory of something that happened 25 years ago still affect a person's life dramatically? Recently I watched a television show out of Great Britain where a number of people who had experienced negative pasts talked about how memories were still affecting them. One person was an emergency responder, one was a police officer and another retired military from the Iraq war. One woman had been in a car wreck more than a decade ago which caused the death of another person, and another young woman had been sexually abused as a child.

So many of them were still experiencing debilitating emotions that affected their day-to-day lives in varying degrees. Their vacant expressions and lack of joy evidenced that they were still being affected by something from long ago, something that was no longer happening in the present but was deeply affecting their present circumstances.

It would be easy to say, "Just get over it! That happened so long ago; put it behind you," but we can't turn our emotions on and off like that, and memories are something we can't erase.

God must have an answer for this dilemma because He tells us not to be dejected or sad, “for the joy of the Lord is your strength.” (Nehemiah 8:10, TLB) A sense of guilt and shame will always make us feel “less than”and keep us out of the presence of God, a place where there is fullness of joy.

An unforgettable night

All four gospel stories record an event about one of Jesus' closest followers, which took place after Jesus was betrayed and arrested. Simon Peter, who was one of Jesus' inner circle, follows at a distance into the High Priest’s courtyard where Jesus is being questioned. A servant girl, then others, begin recognizing him as a follower of Jesus, but he denies it, not once but three times. He gets desperate and begins to swear that he never knew Jesus -- the one who had changed his life and shown him only love, grace and mercy.

Earlier when Jesus was predicting his arrest and death, Peter blurted out, “Lord, I am ready to go with you to prison and to death.” (Luke 22:33) Jesus knows better, however, and tells him that before the rooster crows twice, he will deny Jesus three times. In Luke’s account of the story, Jesus turns and looks at Peter with the words of betrayal still in his mouth as the rooster is crowing, and Peter goes out and weeps bitter tears.

We may not have denied Jesus to His face, but we all can feel something of what Peter felt at that moment -- letting God down, self-loathing for trying to save our own skin at the expense of someone else, despair about the future. We can well imagine the guilt and condemnation he is feeling -- hating what we have done, hating ourselves and trying to find a way to mask those feelings that seem unbearable to live with.

When Jesus is executed, Peter’s despair must have gotten even deeper. When he hears that three days later Jesus had risen from the dead, any hope about Jesus’ resurrection power must have been tinged with fear and trepidation about how the Master would view him. Would Jesus consider him an unreliable traitor and despise him?

It’s no wonder that people self-medicate with drugs and alcohol or we do other damaging things to ourselves to escape the memories and emotions we hate. This isn’t how we were made us to live. God has a way for Peter to recover from negative experience and become a person that changes history, and He has that for each of us, too.

Changing memories

There have been some interesting new findings into how our brain processes memories. Scientists are learning that every time you bring back a memory to your conscious mind, you can either strengthen it or modify it. It can be 30 years after the event occurred, but science is discovering how the emotional part of the memory can be changed. That is good news!

If we ask God to get involved in that negative memory, to modify the emotions that are involved in it, how could that change our present circumstances?

I read a story of a young man who was going to school full time and driving a school bus to support his family. He was not on his regular route one day, but was a substitute drive for someone else, and although he made the correct stops according to the map, it was different than what the regular driver did. Much to his surprise, the kids began verbally assaulting him and calling him the worst sorts of names. He felt totally humiliated and shaken up, so much so that he wanted to quit his job when he got finished.

Many years later, that memory with all of the pain came up to him while he was in prayer. He asked a simple question to God: "Lord where were You when this happened to me?" That is the right question to ask because even though we may not have known God when bad things happened in our lives, He knew us. And when we acknowledge His presence with us, we will begin to see how He has been at work, even when we didn't know Him!

After this question, the young man saw in his imagination the same scene as the original memory with him in the bus driver seat but, instead of being alone, he saw Jesus Christ standing behind him, taking the barbs and the foul language for him like fiery darts in his back. Jesus took the pain and the sting of the experience for him. When he saw this picture in his imagination, it immediately set him free from the hurt and anger he felt. He could release the pain and no longer have a negative emotional experience, even when he remembered it later.

Peter needed to have a personal encounter with the risen Christ in order to get past his past. The risen Christ gave him a chance to rewrite that horrific chapter in his life by associating different emotions with it.

This story is found in John 21 starting in verse 15. Jesus is having a one-on-one with Peter and asks him a point-blank and relevant question: Peter, do you love me? The word for “love” that Jesus uses is the Greek word agapao, meaning the unconditional love of God. Peter answers, “yes, I love you,” but he uses a different Greek word for love, phileo, which means brotherly affection. It is likely that he is still smarting from his failure to love Jesus a few days earlier, and he doesn't think he can live up to the high standard that Jesus offers.

Jesus doesn't correct him. Instead, He commissions him and affirms him. He tells him to feed his lambs, that is, new believers. Jesus apparently is not holding any resentment against Peter. He gives him forgiveness and entrusts him with God’s people. Jesus not only wanted to replace Peter’s negative emotions, but he wanted to give him positive emotions of love, affirmation and confidence.

He then asks him again using the same word of undeniable commitment and Peter gives the same response. Jesus again commissions him for ministry. He says, you're OK. I accept you. I trust you. I am going to have you feed my sheep.

The third time Jesus asks, the Scripture says that Peter was grieved. The three-fold ask of Jesus no doubt brings up the memory of his three-fold denial of Peter. He doesn’t want to face that memory, but Jesus wants him to no longer fear it but have different thoughts associated with that dark chapter of his past. Jesus wants to take the shame and condemnation out of it, otherwise, Peter is going to be stuck emotionally and not going to be able to fulfill God’s plan for his life.

On this third question, Jesus changes His choice of words and asks, do you phileo me? He comes down to meet Peter on his level and identifies with him. Jesus loves him so much and restores him to dignity and a place of no shame.

Jesus then predicts that Peter will die a martyr's death for his Lord, and will ultimately demonstrate the unconditional for Jesus that Peter didn’t believe himself capable of. Truly, Jesus knows Peter much better than he knows himself and believes in his potential!

Peter went on to have a tremendously fruitful ministry, establishing the early church and writing part of the New Testament. And he does die a death of unconditional love and commitment for God. Because of Jesus bringing love and healing into a bitter memory, Peter is restored and commissioned to serve.

Healing from negative emotions

God wants to do that with each of us. He wants to bring us to a place of no shame and unworthiness, a place of affirmation, a place of wholeness. Here is God’s word for you today: It is not God's will for you to live with negative emotions from past memories. There is healing for you! We don't have to live as victims of the past, whether of our own doing or because of things that have been done to us. We don't have to resign ourselves to live crippled lives emotionally and consider it normal. There is victory for us over shame, guilt, anger, bitterness and self-hatred.

We can bring our damaging memories before God, inviting Him to come into these experiences and show us His truth. Many times negative experiences have lied to us and told us God did not love us or that we are not worth being loved or taken care of. We need God to show us the truth and replace negative emotions with His peace, love and joy. After all, God is the master of changing memories!

For I will be merciful and gracious toward their sins and I will remember their deeds of unrighteousness no more. (Hebrews 8:12, Amplified)

God has changed His memories about us!  He is the only one capable of forgetting our sins, and He wants to come into our lives to restore what has been stolen to us through negative experiences. We can invite Him to do that today.

The God Zone

The great thing about prayer is that it helps us access the “God Zone.”

The God Zone is a place where we see by the eyes of faith, instead of our natural vision. Things look a lot better that way. That’s not a denial of present circumstances as much as it is an ability to see things from a heavenly perspective.

Even if our personal circumstances are looking rosy, the condition of the world, observed from our natural senses, is pretty depressing.

We are afforded heaven’s perspective because “we are seated with Him in the heavenly realms – all because we are one with Christ Jesus” (Ephesians 2:6). Our seating with Christ is a fact 24/7, but we become more aware of it as we take a break from the information coming from our natural senses and “see” what God is saying about our lives and our world.

The God Zone also is a place of rest and security. We can let go of anxiety there, if we focus on God’s greatness and His ability to take care of us. (If He is really as great as the Bible says He is, and loves me like the Bible says He does, then what do I have to be worried about? ) When anxiety and insecurity go, joy and peace flood in. I am a lot nicer person once I’ve spent time in the God Zone – just ask my husband or kids!

We can access the God Zone any time we want to, wherever we are, although I’ve found that a regular place and time of prayer is very useful to be purposeful about entering the God Zone. The key ingredient is being transparent with Jesus about what is going on in my heart and not trying to act like everything is cool when it’s not. Only gut-level honest seekers get into the God Zone, because there is nothing phony about God or His kingdom.

The great news is that God wants each of His children to enter there all the time and be refreshed and encouraged by His presence.

Let God Be God

When I was a new believer in Jesus 30 years ago, it seemed like I tried more often than not to tell God how He ought to answer my prayers.

I was roughly six months along in my pregnancy with my first child, when my daughter decided to flip around and was in the wrong positon for the birth. Unless she was returned to the correct position, and quickly, I would be facing a cesarean section.

The doctor gave me exercises to try to get her to turn on her own, which I did diligently, but to no avail.

The doctor then scheduled an external version, where the medical personnel would move the baby around to the correct position by pushing on my belly, while I lay on the bed with my back uncomfortably arched. There was no guarantee that this procedure would be successful, but it would be somewhat painful. I remember asking my small group at church to pray. In my mind, I wanted the baby to turn before the external version would be necessary.

The procedure was scheduled, and all the while I hoped for a miraculous change in her position so I wouldn’t have to go through the procedure. The date for the external version came, and still my daughter was laying the wrong way. Reluctantly I submitted to it – thinking at the time that it was painful, but having no idea about the pain of childbirth that I was soon going to experience! The external version worked, and the nurses afterward told me that they had never seen such a procedure happen so quickly or easily.

You would think I would have been thrilled. I was able to deliver my child naturally a few months later, and God had answered my prayers. In my naïve pride, though, I was disappointed. I wanted God to supernaturally turn the baby without any medical help. I had my terms, and God did not meet them, even though the outcome was ultimately good.

It’s been many years since then and I now look back with embarrassment on my immature faith. How audacious for me to think I could tell God how He should answer my request and what it should look like in order to qualify as an answered prayer in my book.

That’s one reason we want to make sure that when we put our expectation in God, we leave it wide open to Him as to how He wants to deliver our miracle or provide help. Our expectation is not in a prescriptive answer or method. Our expectation is in God’s ultimate goodness, working out His benevolent plan in our lives. We can expect Him to be good to us.

Raising Our Hopes

Positive expectation: That feeling you had as a child on Christmas morning when you woke up and remembered what day it was. It's that wonderful mixture of adrenaline, pleasure, excitement and anticipation of something good that was going to happen to you. It was so real you could almost taste it. 

However, as we grew older, our expectation of good took a sharp downward turn. We experienced disappointment over and over and became wary of getting our hopes up. "Expectation is the root of all heartache," Shakespeare said. "Don't expect things to happen. It is better to be surprised, than to be disappointed," the pessimist tells us. To be truly happy: "Improve your reality, or lower your expectations."

But, is that how God wants us to live? Being cynical and having little expectation of good in order to insulate ourselves from disappointment? Perhaps our problem has been not in expectation itself but in whom or what we put our expectation:

My soul, wait silently for God alone,
For my expectation is from Him.
He only is my rock and my salvation;
He is my defense;
I shall not be moved. (Psalm 62:5-6, NKJV, emphasis added)

Israel's King David certainly had his share of disappointments and crushing despair, especially in his personal life. The context of this psalm is a time of attack and oppression from his enemies, but David remains confident in God's power to help him. Through his experience with God, he knows that the problems around him are not stronger than God's stability, defense and saving power, so he expects God to deliver him completely. 

When you are going through difficulties, do you expect God to help you or do you expect the worst? Do you expect you will have to figure things out on your own and make do with your own resources, or do you expect that God will come through for you with the miracle you need?

Hope is a prevalent theme in the New Testament, and one that is closely linked to our expectancy of God's goodness. Unfortunately, what “hope” means in our everyday vernacular is much different than how the Bible uses this term, so the impact of the message is often lost on us.

In modern speech, we use this word synonymously with "wish for," as in, "I hope it stops raining"; "I hope I can find a parking space close to the entrance to the store"; "I hope my boss gives me a raise."

Usually, there is no expectancy implied that what we hope for will happen. It's a weak, watered-down version of the definition as it is used in the New Testament, which is a pleasurable anticipation or expectation of good.

Using that definition in place of "hope" in the 80-plus verses that it is used in the New Testament could drastically alter how you understand God's desire for you to live. Here is one example:

May the God of expectation fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with expectation by the power of the Holy Spirit. (Romans 15:13, NIV, the word expectation used in place of hope)

God wants our expectation of His goodness to OVERFLOW in our lives. This can only happen through the Holy Spirit's power working in us. He is the God of expectation, not disappointment. If we hang around Him, we will be people of expectation.

If we suffer from a lack of joy and peace in our lives, it might be because we have little expectation of God's goodness. We are filled with joy and peace as we expect HIm to show up and show Himself strong on our behalf.

It's time to raise our hopes high and let God fill them.

Expecting Something Good

Familiarity breeds contempt, the saying goes. I never want that to happen with my relationship with God. After being a Christ-follower for more than 30 years, it's a very real danger because I can finish a verse you start and not even think about what it means.

It's not that I have learned everything there is to know about any topic in the Bible, or even that I am doing most of it. Far from it! It's more a problem of my brain registering familiarity and not taking a deeper look at what God wants to tell me.

The Holy Spirit helps me overcome this problem by giving me provocative definitions about familiar Bible words, usually when I am first waking up in the morning.

This morning, it was the familiar concept of "faith" from the Scriptures. How many messages have I heard (and taught) about that Bible term! But the Holy Spirit, with His laser-like ability to get to the main point, breathed new life into my understanding with this thought: "Faith is nothing more than an expectation that God will be good to you."

I like that. It's simple; it's fresh. As I tried out that definition in some well-known verses, I was amazed at how they popped with new meaning and relevance. See what you think: 

Hearing the word about Christ is designed to bring me expectation that God will be good to me. (Romans 10:17 ESV -- So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ ...)

Bible-reading should not be to build information but to build expectation! Each day when I look at the Scriptures, they can build an expectation in my heart of how good my God is and how good He wants to be to me. There is so much that is wrong going on all around us -- and maybe within us -- that we need to build this expectation daily.

To walk by faith means that I continually expect God to be good to me no matter what I see. (2 Corinthians 5:7 -- for we walk by faith and not by sight ...)

All hell can be breaking loose around me, but if I look past what my senses tell me and rely on the expectation inside about how God wants to be good to me today, right in the midst of the junk, then I can be at peace.

The only way I can please God is to expect Him to be good to me. (Hebrews 11:6 -- But without faith it is impossible to please God...)

This is how much God wants us to expect Him to be good to us -- He will not be pleased with anything less!

My expectation of God being good to me creates something tangible in the spiritual realm that changes what I see. (Hebrews 11:1 -- Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.)

Expectation can be sensed, just as hopelessness and despair can. It permeates the atmosphere, changes my body language, and can be heard in my voice. If i choose to be expectant rather than hopeless, I give God something to work with to bring the answers to my prayers to this earth.

God can help turn my fear into an expectation of good from Him because I know He loves me perfectly. (1 John 4:18 -- Perfect love casts out fear ...)

To be fearful is to expect evil to happen. God wants me to cancel fear through expecting His goodness to happen instead, simply because He loves me.

What all of this means is the end of frustration as I have known it, because to be frustrated means I have stopped expecting God to be good to me. The remedy? The word about Christ, telling me that God is for me, with me, in me and ready to help me.

Heavenly Father, help me to go to Your word and build expectation about Your goodness in my heart, so that I walk by faith all day today. In Jesus' Name I pray. Amen.

Jesus and the Cross

Contrary to what we might think, Jesus' ministry was not a bed of roses that just went south on the final week of his life. We read about the crowds impressed with the healings and provision and miracles he performed and think how great it would have been to be around Jesus.
But not everybody was giving him high fives or chest bumps and applauding His devotion to follow God.
Here is what a typical month might be like if you were Jesus or one of His followers back then:

• Preach at home church -- congregation gets mad and tries to kill you;
• Church leaders accuse you of blaspheming God and try to stone you to death;
• Religious higher-ups criticize you for eating with the wrong crowd, tell other people you are possessed by demons, and criticize your best friends for not being spiritual enough, especially when it comes to fasting and other church-related activites;
• When you deliver a tormented man who had been possessed by multitudes of demons and had been terrorizing the area, the people of the town are upset and demand that you leave;
• Your cousin in prison doubts that you are who you say you are;
• Your mom and brothers think you have gone crazy and try to get you to stop preaching because they are worried about your mental state;
• The most powerful people in the community are plotting to kill you and are continually setting traps to catch you in what you say so they can turn public opinion against you.

Still wish you could have hung out with Jesus?
Jesus told us that if we want to be his followers, we will deny ourselves, take up our cross and follow him. (Matthew 16:24)
His sufferings are not car wrecks, cancer or not having enough money to pay our bills. As traumatic as those events are, that is not what Jesus experienced and what he asks us to experience.
He carried a physical cross to Golgatha, but each day of his life, following the direction of his Father, he also carried another cross. This cross was one of misunderstanding and rejection, it was a cross of reproach and alone-ness in obeying God, it was a cross of criticism and wrongful accusation -- all of the things our flesh hates to endure.
Jesus denied what his flesh was telling him to do -- which was avoid rejection and misunderstanding and take the easy way out -- and accepted his cross every day. It was a necessary part of obeying God. Those who choose to follow him will face the same decision. Are we willing to deny the way of conformity to the world and the strong instinct to protect ourselves from hurt, or follow him in carrying our cross?

Totally Invested

Have you ever put yourself in God's shoes?

It's an unusual position to be in, but worth giving it a try.

Recently, I put myself in God's shoes. Having one son out of four children,  I thought about what it would be like if my one and only son had to be sacrificed to save someone else's life. What if, for some unfathomable reason, my child had to spill his blood to save someone's life -- and he freely chose to do that?

I immediately thought of how much I would be interested in what happened to the person for whom the sacrifice was made. How ridiculous to think that we would go our separate ways, with me hoping that everything turned out for the best for him.

The only thing worse than having my son die would be for his death to be in vain.

No, I would be fully invested in seeing this person who was given a new chance at life be successful. I would do everything in my power to make sure his life was fruitful and blessed. I would not be indifferent, now that the ultimate sacrifice had been provided.

In the same way, our heavenly Father is fully invested in our future. He is not indifferent about what happens to us. The ultimate price has been paid. His Son's blood has been shed on our behalf. Father God is going to do everything in His power to make sure we "make it." He is not indifferent about our futures or about the plan He has for our lives. He gave his best so we could have the best -- experiencing everything Jesus Christ died to give us and living a life of fruitfulness and blessing.

That should bring us amazing comfort: Someone has our back, and we have nothing to fear.

He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? (Romans 8:32 NIV)