It was one of those many phone apps
that promises an improvement in brain function if used regularly.
Suckered in by the hope of forestalling age-related mental loss, I
had downloaded several to my phone and simply enjoyed the challenge
of beating my last score, whether I was truly benefiting my brain or
not. This one in particular offered two categories for improvement,
mental performance and emotional intelligence. For several days I
concentrated on the former, thinking that I just needed to be able to
think faster, process ideas more quickly, increase reaction times,
and improve memory. But the app suggested that both types of
intelligence were important for good mental health, and so just for
fun, I ventured into the realm of challenging my emotional well
being.
The first game seemed so easy; a color
was printed at the top of the screen, and I was supposed to match it
to the right word in the list of colors that appeared underneath it.
Simple, I thought. The word “purple” appeared, and quickly I
searched the list of colors printed underneath it until I found the
same, and clicked on it.
“Brrrrrrp,” buzzed my phone.
It was the wrong answer! Thinking my thumb had mistakenly hit the
color above or below the one I wanted, I tried again.
“Yellow” came the prompt, and I
looked for and clicked on “yellow” in the list below, more
carefully this time. But again my choice was wrong! Sadly, this
happened several more times before I realized I was supposed to match
the color the word was printed in, not the color it read. Thus
when the word “purple” showed up in yellow type, I was supposed
to select “yellow” from the list below it, not “purple.” The
point was to detect true feelings behind spoken words.
Clearly some of us are better at this
than others. When my boys were still living at home, one of my sons
could detect a sadness in my emotional state, no matter how I tried
to camouflage it with happy smiles and cheery talk, and he was
relentless in his pursuit of the source of the problem. While others
in the same household could be fooled by my attempts at normalcy in
the form of busy activity and casual conversation, he was not.
Although my actions spelled the word “happy” he would detect the
blue-mood ink they were written in and call me on it every time.
God's Son did the same. Over and over
in the Bible we see how Jesus looked beyond the spoken words and
actions of people into the true state of their hearts, and spoke and
responded to them accordingly. Some might claim that because He was
God in the flesh He had access to inside information about people
that the rest of us lack. For instance, He knew that the Woman at the
Well had been married five times and was now living with yet another
man. Yet it was the condition of His heart that caused Him to begin a
conversation with her in the first place, despite the cultural
boundaries concerning gender and genealogy. While He consistently
challenged the current thinking of the times, offering new ideas and
ways of relating to one another, His purpose was to change the hearts
of those He encountered. And we see the success of his “training
sessions” when we read of men who said their hearts burned within
them while He was speaking to them, and others who could sit for
hours just listening to what He had to say, despite pressure from
those around them to perform more functional tasks. Jesus' answer to
Martha concerning her sister's lack of help with household chores is
telling: “'Martha, Martha...you are worried and upset about many
things, but only one thing is needed. Mary has chosen what is better,
and it will not be taken away from her.'”
Perhaps we have it wrong, then, and are
simply concentrating on the wrong organ. We spend time and money
trying to improve the function of our brains, when Jesus says it's
the condition of our hearts that we should be worried about.
Research into the performance of brain training apps suggests that
while the mind can be coached with repetition to improve the
performance of certain tasks, overall IQ doesn't change significantly
over a person's lifetime. Yet one's emotional intelligence can
increase simply with the desire to improve.
It's interesting that a part of a
believer's heart transformation likewise involves a change in the way
we think about things as well as in the way we respond to others. We
just need to learn how to operate in this new realm of existence. The
brain apps are consistent in their insistence that regular training
sessions are essential if brain activity is to improve, and they are
eager to send notifications and reminders to our phones to keep us on
track. Likewise there is no substitute for time with God if we want
to become more like Him, and He uses the Holy Spirit to prompt us in
that pursuit. Thankfully the ways to spend time in God's presence are
even more numerous than the options in the app store, and free for
the taking. We just have to make the time to make them an active part
of our lives.
The closer we get to Jesus, the more
our minds and hearts will think and love like His.
“And do not be
conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your
mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect
will of God.”
(Romans 12:2 NKJV)
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment