Write your own Script

The Mechanisms of Thinking – Visual & Verbal Thinking

The mechanisms by which we process thoughts are not a mystery. God designed the human brain and soul to process thoughts using visual images and verbal words/phrases. When we think, we form a mental image and talk to ourselves about the issue at hand. Let’s look closer at both of these.

Visual Thinking

God designed the heart (kardia) with the ability to visualize both tangible and intangible things. Paul, discussing knowledge of the Lord and His plan talks about using the “eyes of your heart” (Eph 1:18). This capacity is easier to describe than define so let me illustrate how the eyes of the heart work.

Imagine you are sitting in your den and decide you need to get a drink of water. Your mind will form a video clip of you getting out of your chair, you charting a path to the kitchen, you will visualize which cabinet contains the glasses, you will visualize where the liquid of choice is kept and see yourself picking it up and pouring it into the glass. Then you will visualize the path to your next stop. While this may sound too detailed, it is what most of us do as we make little decisions all day long. As we drive to work, we visualize the turns before we arrive there.

We follow a similar procedure when thinking about bigger issues in our lives. We will visualize the long term goals of our career path by breaking our ultimate goal down into steps along the way. You might visualize college with a certain degree, then your first job, then promotions along the way and finally perhaps starting your own business. Our minds have been endowed with this great ability to see with our minds using the mind’s eye.

Verbal Thinking

The verbal aspect of our thought processing works in tandem with the visual. As you are sitting in your chair, you will tell yourself: I am thirsty! I am going to get a drink. I think I will put ice in a glass and drink Dr. Pepper. Ok, the Glasses are up here and the DP is down by the fridge. Now, I am going back to watch my program. As you were visualizing these steps you were also talking to yourself, telling yourself what to do so that your goals would be accomplished.

God’s Design

This tandem action of visual and verbal inner action is the way God designed our minds to work. The same holds true for processing the word of God. The reason I am writing about this and why it is imperative for us to understand it, is that this is the mechanics of learning, believing and applying the word. Our minds process spiritual phenomena the same way as earthly phenomena. The difference is that GHS enables us to process spiritual concepts and without His ministry we wouldn’t be able to do so. GHS uses the same mechanics though and we use our volition to decide what we will see in our minds and tell ourselves about the word.

Spiritual Visual & Verbal Thinking

The issue in this discussion is that just as we decide to believe and act upon any information in life, we also make the same decisions about God and His word. When we choose to listen/learn to understand His word, believe it to program our hearts with His word and attach our faith to His word for action, we use the same visual and verbal mechanics. When we hear a concept of truth and understand it, we tell ourselves to believe it. When it is time to act upon it, we visualize the action and tell ourselves to act in accordance with GHS leading. Every time we make the choice to process God’s word to fruition, we do so intentionally and by choice. We actually choose to visualize His word and tell ourselves to believe and use it. We don’t do anything by accident. We choose every thought, every feeling and every behavior using these same mechanics.

Be Intentional

Now, understanding what we do exactly to cause ourselves to learn, believe and use God’s word, we can use the system to be intentional about what we are seeing and saying within ourselves. Intent is the key in properly processing the word of God. Intent is the issue when we need to change how we fell inside. Intent is the means by which we choose to see/say to bring application of the word. Intentionality is the privilege of the believer only in the spiritual realm. As believers empowered by GHS to understand the whole counsel of God, we have also been empowered to choose what we will see with our mind’s eye and say within our hearts. We get to write our own scripts that we play out in our minds.

Discouraged by our Imagination

Here is an example. I recently spoke with a man who was suffering with discouragement and maybe even depression. He has been unable to find work for many months and is in danger of losing all of his possessions. When we spoke, I asked him to tell me what he had been visualizing and verbalizing to himself. It took some time for him to recall the scenarios he had been running but they went something like this: He saw them taking his home and cars. He saw the fear and shame on his wife’s face and her unspoken accusation of LOSER! I married a loser! He saw his kids being fearful and he saw himself having to move in with his family into a relative’s home. He had been telling himself that God had waited this long to provide, perhaps He had decided to never provide. Maybe God is going to use me as an example of what He does with those who had not been totally faithful.. You get the picture.

Choosing the Scenarios

No wonder he was discouraged. The ideas he was cycling in his mind were very depressing and I wanted to get depressed. We discussed the fact that those images and words were choices he was making and that he could change them anytime he decided to do so. He could visualize God blessing him at the right time and keeping His promise of provision in miraculous ways. He could see/say the promises of God and see/say them in application to himself. My words were: “you are writing your own script, we all do, so why not make the script a love story where everything turns out great”? The man smiled and said, but what evidence do I have to support such a script? Well, I said, how have you gotten this far? Have you made it this far because you are so smart and able that you didn’t need God’s grace? Now that your own ability has run out and you need grace, is God going to let you sink and enjoy watching it? No, he said, I know God has gotten me this far. I know that only He can provide my needs and that He has promised to do that. I know it is true, I just have trouble believing it right now.

And so it is for all of us. When the road ahead is dimly lit and trouble has come to rest on us, we all have a tendency to visualize and verbalize the worst.

In Numbers 13-14, we see the exact same thing with the Exodus generation. When the spies returned from spying out the land, 10 of them had chosen to see everything that could have gone wrong. Joshua and Caleb told the people, let’s go get our land. God has promised it to us. The other 10 spies said this:

Num 13:31-33 But the men who had gone up with him said, “We can’t attack those people; they are stronger than we are.” 32 And they spread among the Israelites a bad report about the land they had explored. They said, “The land we explored devours those living in it. All the people we saw there are of great size. 33 We saw the Nephilim there (the descendants of Anak come from the Nephilim). We seemed like grasshoppers in our own eyes, and we looked the same to them.”

The 10 spies saw the land and chose to tell themselves the worst in spite of all that God had said and the miracles He had done for them. Then the people responded the same way:

Numbers 14:1-3 That night all the people of the community raised their voices and wept aloud. 2 All the Israelites grumbled against Moses and Aaron, and the whole assembly said to them, “If only we had died in Egypt! Or in this desert! 3 Why is the LORD bringing us to this land only to let us fall by the sword? Our wives and children will be taken as plunder. Wouldn’t it be better for us to go back to Egypt?”

The people heard the report and visualized themselves being killed and their families being taken. They told themselves that God was out to get them and had used Moses to trick them so they could just die in the desert.

Imagine God’s Grace

The man said, ok Al, what do you suggest? I suggest you see/say God doing the very best for you. Now, has God decided to allow you to go through suffering for Christ? Has He decided to allow you to go under financially? I can’t say what God has planned for you. I can say that whatever it is, it is meant to bring blessing to you and your wife and your kids and glory to Him. If He allows you to go down financially, the go down while telling yourself that He is at the helm and He is taking you to a land of promise. Write your own script for this thing based on the truth of God’s word and choose to visualize it and verbalize it one moment at a time. Tell yourself the truth and stop telling yourself all of these lies. Its hard, he said. Yes, I suppose it is but what is hard about it? It is a habit that can be broken in a short time if you will simply decide to do it. When the old stuff comes up, you tell it to go away and call it the lie that it is. Turn and generate an image and phrases that encourage you and reflect God’s character and promises. If you will choose to do this, your depression will go away and be replaced by courage.

He called 3 days later with a good report, thanking me for giving him some sense. I allowed the negative images and dialogue to swallow me up and I have put a stop to that. When the negative stuff comes up now, I chase it out of my soul with a stick. It runs too, like a scared dog. Then, I have written down a list of verses that remind me that God is good, that He is faithful, that He never lies and that He has promised to provide for me and my family. I feel much better and have resumed my job search. Something will come along, I know it.

Write your own Script

In conclusion, we all think using the same mechanisms that God designed into the human soul/mind. We all choose the content of what we are circulating moment by moment either truth or lie. It is our choice to make. The script of your life has been pre-written only in the mind of God because He knows what you will choose. You can use God’s word to write your own script, play out your own part using the dialogue you choose based on God’s word. Be intentional about what you are seeing and saying in your mind. Don’t allow your mind to run on autopilot. Practice this exercise by telling yourself these verses. Don’t just read them, read them with conviction. Read them to yourself like you were trying to convince someone dear to you to believe them and act upon them. Sell yourself on these truths.

2 Peter 1:3-4 seeing that His divine power has granted to us everything pertaining to life and godliness, through the true knowledge of Him who called us by His own glory and excellence. 4 For by these He has granted to us His precious and magnificent promises, in order that by them you might become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world by lust.

Heavenly Father, As we see our nation in the midst of terrible self-deception, beyond what we could have imagined, remind us who is in control of history. Remind us that you can bless us and bring good out on anything, in any situation. Teach us to visualize and verbalize your word within ourselves and to lay aside the old way with its self-defeating images. Encourage us to see the Promised Land over the next hill and remind us that it is ours to take. We love you Lord. Please protect us from the evil intentions of evil men.