Neuronal

Excerpt from In a Pit with a Lion On a Snowy Day by Mark Batterson:

"Just as a computer hard drive needs to be defragmented to optimize performance, our minds need to be defragmented. So how do we defragment our faith? How do we renew our minds? How do we get ourselves out of the mental pit we've gotten ourselves into? The way to upgrade your mind is to download Scripture.

Let me put Paul's instructions in neurological context.

Doctors Avi Karni and Leslie Ungerleider of the National Institute of Mental Health did a fascinating study asking patients to perform a simple motor task -- a finger-tapping exercise. As subjects tapped, the doctors conducted an MRI to identify what part of the brain was being activated. The subjects then practiced the finger-tapping exercise daily for four weeks. At the end of the four-week period, the brain scan was repeated. In each instance, it revealed that the area involved in the task had expanded. That simple task -- a finger-tapping exercise -- literally recruited new nerve cells and rewired neuronal connections.

When we read in Scripture, we are recruiting new nerve cells and rewiring neuronal connections. In a sense, we are downloading a new operating system that reconfigures the mind. We stop thinking human thoughts and start thinking God thoughts.

Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus.

How do we accomplish that command?

Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly.

When we read Scripture, we engage in spiritual tapping. Our brains are rewired in alignment with the Word, and we develop the mind of Christ. We think His thoughts."

[p. 46]