unbelief part 2

Well, it's been two weeks, and I've yet to hear an audible message from the Lord, so I thought I'd just shoot and hope for the best. Just to recap, we've established that the church has been immobilized by unbelief. Two questions remain. First, why do we believe other things more deeply than we believe the promises of God? And second, how can our paralytic predicament be rectified?

To answer our first question, we need look no further than our own childhood. Some of us in the Bible-belt may have heard the Good News at an early age. Yet we had, at that point, already come to believe other things. The world is full of direct and indirect messages about our worth, or lack there of. Since day one, we've been absorbing false messages that have convinced us to trust no one, and to be discontent with our true identities.

There is actually a science behind all of this. At the very base of the human brain, there's a tiny region known as the limbic system. This area has nothing to do with rational thought, but instead deals with emotion, motivation, and instinct. It only makes sense that those things that we've believed the longest are the things that would be buried the deepest in our brain. Essentially, our intellect can believe in God, while the deeper areas of our brain are sold on an entirely different set of ideas. Ultimately, it's those things that we believe down deep that steer us.

Those of us who were raised in Sunday School are well versed on the Word of God. We know the basic plot, and can fill-in much of the details. Unfortunately, what makes a good Bible Trivia player doesn't always make a good disciple. Again, our problem is not what we know. Our problem is what we believe. Put simply, we have ourselves a problem that bypasses our intellect, transcends our analytical capacities, and strikes at the very root of who we are . As common sense would tell us, a deep problem calls for an even deeper solution. We'll get to that next time.