OUTWITTED - BY YOUR BRAIN
THE ILLUSION
If the truth were to be told, there are likely a great many of us who feel as though we are some pretty smart cookies.
Albeit we might not go as far as saying that we are geniuses, but at the very least we know we aint no dummies.
The Bible offers us a word of contrition to consider before saying who we are. “Beware of thinking more highly of yourself than you ought to”
What does that mean exactly? The Lord is just saying check your source.
What is our source of thinking such thoughts? Our own mind!
But what if we have been Outwitted by our own brains? Which is to say, who says that what we are thinking is accurate. Is it Fact Checked?
That’s what we will delve into today. The source of our thoughts.
Believe it or not, we all suffer from a form of Dysfunctional Thinking.
The Bible tells us “there is nothing new under the sun”. Which means that what was, IS. And that which is, WAS. In other words, everything is the same old, same old. Aint nothing new!
News Flash! There are no new original thoughts. The first and last original thought took place a few thousand years ago, by Eve and Adam.
Prior to “that original thought” they simply did whatever God said to do.
Things were a bit different back then, they didn’t have all the extra that we have today. It was easier to just simply hear from God back then.
We too can still hear from God today; we just must shut out all the noise. Turn off the phone, tv, computer, and our brains. “Sit, be still, and you will know God”. Nature is a great place to disconnect or reconnect.
Adam and Eve had a thought introduced to them that was other than God’s. It was a deceptive thought. One that was intended to get them off their path. Very similar to thoughts that we have today. Thoughts, suggestions, that are designed to pull us away from God. Distractions!
I’m not talking about thoughts of good vs evil. That would have been too obvious. These were and are subtle thoughts. Not blatant ones.
Subtle like, “What you feel is important too”. The deception in this line of thinking is not that our feelings are not important, but rather that our feelings are the MOST IMPORTANT THING. They are not!
Unfortunately, Adam and Eve took that bait. They believed that what they felt, was more important than anything, even what God said. That original thought is what got them expelled out of paradise!
So how does what happened to them way back then affect me today?
It’s about what happened to our brain. More importantly our thought processing. How we processed thoughts changed dramatically in that one encounter. It wasn’t about the devil vs. God. It was much deeper than that. It was that Our Feelings mattered more than anything/anyone.
We became more feeling focused than we did fact or truth focused.
Allow me to prove it to you scientifically. The study of Physiology says that our brains receive around 11 million bits of information per second.
What does 11 million bits of information look like? Let’s compare that to a typical reading rate of 300 words per minute, which equates to 5 words per second that we can process. Can you see the log jam?
In other words, we take in a whole lot more information at a faster rate than we can process it. I’ve often said, “It’s not good to take in more information than what you know what to do with”.
Here is the breakdown of those 11 million or so bits of information that we receive per second. Through the Eyes we receive 10,000,000 bits. Skin 1,000,000 bits. Ears 100, 000 bits. Smell 100,000 bits. Taste 1,000 bits.
Notice it’s all through our senses. Also note that we hear considerably way less than what we see. That’s why we need to be more focused on what someone says, rather than just seeing what they want to show us. Learning to listen will get us out of a lot of issues that we face.
There is a huge discrepancy in the amount of information that is transmitted to the brain than what is actually being processed. Our conscious brains can only process about 40 bits of information of the 11 million bits received per second. It’s about closing the gap between subconscious information gathered to conscious information processed.
The biggest log jam takes place in that compression process. Without going too deep scientifically, most of our thoughts are bucketized into feelings. I’m sure that bursts a lot of bubbles. You thought yourself to be a deep pontificator. That’s simply not the case. We think, what we feel.
Thus, a full circle moment. We are back to what brother Adam and sister Eve did. That means that our thoughts are based upon feelings. How you feel about a thing dictates how you think about a thing. Not the best strategy! We saw where it got them; homeless, lonely, and struggling.
Often time we tend to think the worst, and hope for the best. Again, not the best strategic approach for victory. Living by our feelings makes for a very unstable journey, our feelings change from moment to moment as well as it also allows others considerable control over us as they manipulate us through our feelings.
So how do we combat being Outwitted by Our Minds? We Get a New Mind! We Retrain Our Brain!. Transform our thinking process.
We need to refamiliarize ourselves with Gods voice. Focus on listening to Him. Start by reading any section of any version of Gods Holy Word. Just start and God will take over from there. God Bless!
This is a Thompson Truth
