Worship is good for your brain

My wife has just finished reading a book called Change your brain – change your life by a psychiatrist called Dr Amen (a fitting name don’t you think?) She has been sharing some of her discoveries with me. Amen attributes different psychological challenges to either the over or under-activity of various systems in the brain.

I was particularly interested in the symptoms indicative of an over-active Deep Limbic system. They seemed to fit me. One sentence in particular resonated strongly: When the Limbic system is over-active, one negative thought follows another. Amen calls these negative thoughts ANTS which stands for automatic negative thoughts. Some days, I end up crawling with ANTS. For example, I might notice that someone is gazing out of the window whilst I am preaching. Now, I am not talking about the usual sleepers and window gazers. No, I mean somebody that I respect. So I think, “it’s probably because he doesn’t agree with me”. If I do not take that thought captive and dispute it, one thought leads to another, and I will end the day wondering when I should go back to engineering!

My parents occasionally remind me of an event that took place when I was a toddler. I would often (the story goes) take my potty into the garden so as to introduce an element of beauty to an otherwise ugly necessity. However, on one occasion, I disturbed a nest of Matabele ants and ended up screaming from the rose garden, “ants bite, ants bite!” And they do! This is where Amen’s advice comes in useful. Since an over-active Limbic system leads to problems, he suggests various ways to calm it down. One way is to cultivate positive bonding.

Now, you may be wondering what this has to do with worship, the topic I introduced last week. Well my wife made the observation that singing-worship is a way of bonding with God. Nothing else knits your heart to God’s in quite the same, profound way that worship and prayer do. I had a bad “ANT attack” on Saturday night, but the intimacy I experienced in worship on Sunday morning supplied the ANT-killer.

Prayer and praise put us in a place where we can receive the power we need to glorify God in tough circumstances. I wouldn’t be surprised if calming the Limbic system is part of the process. Psalm 22 records a period of intense struggle and persecution for David. In fact, his sufferings were so severe that they provided a fore-shadow of the ones Christ experienced. But notice how the psalm oscillates between complaint and praise or between doubt and faith. Eventually, however, from verse 22 on, the psalm ends on a long triumphant note of praise to God. Whether you are suffering from ANTS, something more concrete or a mixture of both (which is usually the case), praise and prayer will bring you through victorious. Paul and Silas were beside themselves with pain and discomfort as they sat with their legs forced cruelly apart in the stocks, trying to keep their shredded backs off the ground. Yet midnight found them “praying and singing hymns to God” (Acts 16:25). They could afford to do nothing else. And look at how God brought them through.

May I encourage you, therefore, to fumigate your own ANT infestations with a good dose of worship? Medicate your suffering with praise! And you needn’t wait till Sunday either. Switch on a CD player or pick up a guitar, but whatever you do, start praising God.

Reflections on Worship

Last Sunday found me seated with twenty teenagers ranging from thirteen to fifteen – what a privilege! As time went on, we got to talking about communal singing in church. Why is it, we wondered, that Christians spend so much time singing to God? I mean, just how often do we have to tell God that we love Him or that He is super-dee-dooperdy special? Surely He already knows?

One of the kids thought it had something to do with being thankful. The idea, she admitted, came from a short homily delivered at the supper table by her mom about the virtue of being thankful and expressing gratitude – especially, it  would seem, to one’s parents (now there’s a thought!) She was beginning to suspect that, among other things, her parents needed to be thanked from time to time. For some reason it seemed to cheer them up. At that point, there was some sage head-nodding. Then we wondered whether God needed anything from us, like thanks and praise. What do you think? Does God need your praise?

There is a hymn of praise recorded at the end of Romans 12. It is Paul’s response to what he has just written about the sovereignty of God. In the song, Paul asks the question, “Who has ever given to God that God should repay him (11:35)” Who indeed? This is a rhetorical question; the answer is clearly: nobody! God does not need your praise. And it is a miserable parody of true worship when we think that our singing will place God under obligation to us. So why do we sing so much? Before I write about the reasons we came up with, take time to answer the question yourself. You may well discover other sound Biblical reasons. Our thoughts are by no means comprehensive. In fact, we may pursue this subject further next week.

To begin, I have found four psalmists that give the same reason for praising God: the fact that He is “worthy of praise” (18, 48, 96 & 145). We praise God simply because He is praiseworthy. If somebody saved you from drowning, would you not declare the praises of his courage and strength? Should not the invalid commend the mercy and competence of her nurse? The inventor of a cure for cancer would be forgiven for boasting about the merits of his treatment. God is infinitely praiseworthy because of who He is and what He has done. So it is fitting to sing about the perfection of God’s character and the splendour of His works.

Paul moves on from his hymn in chapter 11 to talk about the worship of God. He says: “offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God – this is your spiritual act of worship”. True worship has always involved cost and a sacrifice. King David said, “I will not sacrifice to the Lord my God burnt offerings that cost me nothing” (2 Sam 24:24). David offered oxen as a costly sacrifice, but Paul calls you to offer YOURSELF as the sacrifice.

Now the sacrificial offering is less valuable than the person or cause for which it is sacrificed. So when you sing to God, you remind yourself that you are less important than Him. And isn’t that one of our biggest failings? We conduct our lives as though God is of little account. How often do you sacrifice the cause of God for the sake of your own? It should never happen. Instead, your singing-worship should become an overflow of your life-worship, declaring in music and movement that it is infinitely more desirable and satisfying to worship God than to worship yourself or anything else.

So we sing to God because He is worthy of praise, and we do it to celebrate God’s importance, reminding one another that when we sacrifice ourselves for the cause of God, then we are truly worshipping Him the only source of life.

Cheers for now - Ian

Doing What Doesn't Come Naturally

Obedience doesn’t get much good press these days. Apart from The Dog Whisperer on BBC Entertainment, most films and books celebrate disobedience and eulogise those that break the rules. Admittedly, those that set the rules are often portrayed as draconian, inept or bad. But why is it that those who break the rules are almost always cast as the “goodies” and those in authority are usually the “baddies”? I’m beginning to think that our generation has a problem with submission to authority. And part of the reason why I suspect this is that I feel uncomfortable having raised the issue!

In fact, I see signs of discomfort wherever I look. For example, many parents struggle to require obedience from their children. Why is that? Is there something wrong or illegitimate with being in authority over someone else? But not only are people uncomfortable with being in authority, they battle to accept authority too. Woe betide the school that punishes a child in such a way as to inconvenience his mother! I have been told of parents that refuse to allow their children to do community service for a legitimate infringement of school rules because it simply doesn’t fit with their lift run.

Even the church has found a way to make obedience seem unfashionable by branding it as legalism. Now don’t get me wrong, I am not advocating obedience to a set of rules for the sake of earning one’s salvation or to make one person feel superior to another, which is the true definition of legalism. But what I am advocating is the fruit of salvation. Salvation is by faith, but its fruit is obedience. Disobedience goes with the old person, obedience with the new. Paul devotes an entire section to this subject in his letter to the Romans (Chapter 6). And the Apostle John says: “We know that we have come to know him if we obey his commands” (1 John 2:3). In fact, even Jesus was in submission to authority and said, “For I have come down from heaven not to do my will but to do the will of him who sent me” (John 6:38).

Last week, we reflected on the similarities between rain and God’s word (Isaiah 55). The purpose of rain is to bring abundant life to the earth, and it doesn’t return to the clouds without having achieved that purpose. In the same way, the Word of God is the life-blood of our relationship with Him, always facilitating God’s purposes for our lives. But the Word will only have its effect on us if we listen and obey.

So may 2011 be a year when you saturate yourself in the reading and study of God’s word. Obey what you learn. And do not forget that Jesus was God’s Word in the flesh. You have the Spirit of Jesus in you today – listen to Him; obey Him.  Pray to Jesus every day: “Lord, I want you to be my teacher today – I am ready to obey; may your kingdom come; not my will but yours be done”. Then whether you are reading the Bible, or praying, or driving, or working, Jesus – the Word of God – will be teaching you, making you fruitful and working God’s purposes for your life.

Cheers for now - Ian

Transformed in 2011?

I have always been fascinated by the water cycle. It is appealing to imagine that the drop of water in the glass next to my computer might at one time have glistened on a spider’s web in a Saharan sunrise, or it may (just as easily) have been frozen to the whiskers of a polar bear. The terrestrial water system is a closed one, so it contains a fixed quantity of water that changes its location and form in an endless distribution of life. Evaporation and transpiration purify water, puffing it as vapour into the atmosphere where it condenses as clouds that wring themselves out for the sake of life on earth.

And just think of the life that water supports and produces in the various stages of its cycle. For example, almost 70% percent of your body is water. With a physique like mine, you would think that my body is 70% muscle. But no, respected scientists tell me otherwise. Well, so much for our bodies. Let us turn our thoughts now to plants. If you sow a single mealie seed, water and sunlight will help it to produce hundreds of seeds – enough to eat and to plant again next season. God’s gift of water is the life-blood of a creation that is irrepressibly generous and vivacious.

Perhaps it is no surprise then that God uses the water cycle to teach us something about His Word. In Isaiah 55, the Prophet writes that just as rain waters the earth producing a harvest before it returns to the sky, so God’s word produces abundant life and fruit before returning to Him (v10, 11).

However, as humans, we have a problem. We tend to think that our thoughts and ways of doing things are better than God’s (v7). Yet our thoughts and ways become wicked and evil when we ignore God (v7). Further, we “spend money on what is not bread, and [our] labour on what does not satisfy” (v2). Excluding God does not yield life, it harvests death. That is why the Prophet’s voice cries out just as piercingly today as it did 2600 years ago:

⁶ Seek the LORD while he may be found; call on him while he is near. ⁷ Let the wicked forsake his way and the evil man his thoughts. Let him turn to the LORD , and he will have mercy on him, and to our God, for he will freely pardon.

                God has granted you a stay of execution, a few precious years when “he may be found”. But your earthly life is suffering from an unquenchable haemorrhage. And once you have died, it will be too late! So do not squander your life on what is not bread, sweating vital seconds on what does not satisfy. Turn to The Word who became flesh and dwelt among us (John 1:14). Live in relationship with Jesus. Follow His commands. Ask Him what needs to change this year. With Jesus’ help, joy and peace and fruitfulness will characterise your life, declaring the praises of His infinite renown.

And then, as you face the start of a new year...

¹² You will go out in joy and be led forth in peace; the mountains and hills will burst into song before you, and all the trees of the field will clap their hands. ¹³ Instead of the thornbush will grow the pine tree, and instead of briers the myrtle will grow. This will be for the LORD's renown, for an everlasting sign, which will not be destroyed.