Brains, Idols, and Our Focus

Research on the brain, thinking, and emotions is pretty fascinating these days because new research is uncovering lot of information.  One of the most helpful discoveries of the past century is that brains are malleable.  They are not fixed and rigid.  

This is not news for some people, but most of the scientific community apparently considered brain structure to be inborn and unchangeable, or at least permanently shaped by an early age. 

There’s no doubt that brains are shaped by early experience, but the good news is that they don’t have to stay that way.  As Dan Seigal, professor of psychiatry at UCLA, says, “Where attention goes, neural firing flows and neural connection grows, and patterns that you thought were fixed are things that with effort can be changed.”

This means that as we focus on something – feed the knowledge of it and the desire to think about it – neural pathways are created in our brains.  We create new neural connections and restructure our brains.  So things we thought we couldn’t change can change, but with effort.  It doesn’t happen by wishing.  It happens by giving it attention.

This reminds me of what Jesus says in Matthew 6: 21, “For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”  Whatever I treasure becomes the thing my heart is attached to.  That will be my focus.  

I saw a quote related to this idea that hit hard.  Tim Keller explained, “An idol is whatever you look at and say in your heart of hearts, ‘if I have that, then I’ll feel my life has meaning, then I’ll know I have value, then I’ll feel significant and secure.’”  That should only be God.  Being His is what gives our lives meaning, value, significance, and security.

But that is really hard for me to feel.  America promotes the idea that those things come from your work and your success, or your looks and your relationships.  So there’s this constant scramble to earn or hang onto those things, but they eventually turn up empty.  

That verse about the treasure precedes this verse: “If your eyes are good, your whole body will be full of light.  But if your eyes are bad, your whole body will be full of darkness.” And the verse after that is about not being able to serve two masters.  I’m pretty sure the context shows us that our focus (our eyes) has to be singular, on one thing, on THE master.  If we have our hearts and our focus on Jesus, He changes us (and our brains), giving us meaning, value, significance, and security.