Our view of God

I read this article in the October issue of Fast Company that got me thinking about how we experience and view God. This article was an adaptation of a book called Iconoclast that was looking at some of the most creative people in the business world. The article is entitled "Rewiring the Creative Mind" and it looks at what neuroscience is saying about how people think and come up with new ideas.
According to neuroscience these days, our brain is essentially a "lazy piece of meat". "Neuroscientists have observed that while an entire network of neurons might process a stimulus initially by about the sixth presentation, the heavy lifting is performed by only a subset of neurons." Essentially, our brain has become efficient at processing this stimulus and helps jump to the end...thus, what seems to be the same, will be viewed as the same because your brain will process it down that path.
This really got me thinking about God and they way I think about Him and have perceived Him in my life. I started forming 'neural connections' about God WAY back when I was a kid. Those connections have essentially created a highway down which my thoughts want to race to get to the conclusion...or the way I see and think, recognize and understand God. It is effectively programmed in me to analyze stimuli that way.Anyway...if this is how the brain reacts...how difficult is it for every person to see God in a way that is different than the first way we experienced God? The way we first talked with and to others about God, the way we first experienced worship or our first 'spiritual' moment were the initial stimulus as we formed our neural highways. Our 'understanding of God was already mapped out.
Can you imagine how varied those experiences are for everyone in the world? No wonder it is so difficult sometimes for each of us to understand how differently each other person can relate to that understanding of God...when our synapses are streamlined and efficiently getting us to our "answer" about God?
So, now you must be wondering where am I going with this? Am I saying that we are doomed based on the way we initially hear about God, or that our brains have trapped us into always thinking the same thoughts? No, of course not.
The article actually continued to talk about these creative people who are essentially good at not allowing themselves to jump to those conclusions. They speak about the way to 'reprogram' your brain by deploying your attention differently and in new environments with new information that will re-stimulate your brain into making new associations, firing new neuron connections and allowing you to see things in ways you would not have before.
I think that is pretty fascinating stuff and yet it essentially gets down to some tried and true things that people have known for a long time: A pastor down in Washington DC puts it this way "A change in place + a change of pace = change in perception"
1 - If you keep doing what you have been doing, your going to get the same answer
To me, if we all stay cocooned talking to the same people about the same things, we are not really firing up new synapses and engaging those neurons to make new connections. We will get bored! And no one wants to be boring or in a place that is boring. We have to constantly be feeding ourselves new information that will challenge us to see things in a new way and put ourselves into new environments that will make us a little uneasy. That is when the growth happens.
2 - Walk a mile in their shoes
This really means to not stay where we are and declare judgment, but to get out to those who don't think like we do and engage them where they are...they are in a place similar to #1 and won't 'get a new perspective' on anything if something new doesn't come along that will actually get their neurons firing.
So...for me, I know that I need to go out and find new ways to perceive the things and ways of God that get more synapses firing and literally blow my mind up so that my vision of God gets bigger. Maybe something along the way struck you as well...maybe not. But, it may help you understand why someone you have been praying for has yet to 'see' things differently. So, don't give up! We absolutely have to keep reaching out to people who haven't seen God yet...because if we don't reach out to them and get them to look at things a little differently than they do now, they may NEVER see God...their brains will continue to perceive those things of God as abstract data that gets tossed (their hearts are hardened) because it doesn't align with how the brain processes things and they will be missed for what they truly are.