Who and What Controls You ?

I dreamed that we were living in a time when Christians were being threatened and we knew it was only a matter of time before we would be killed for our faith !

I was trying to explain to my sister-in-law and her husband, who had come to visit, the dark time we were living in and how we needed to be strong. Suddenly a vehicle with two uniformed men drove up and I thought .. "Oh..here they come to kill us..” But they only dropped off a huge chain link cage full of chickens.

The phone rang and I turned away from the window to answer it. It was a man asking that we agree to contribute a roaster full of food to feed some down and outers off the street … about twenty of them. I argued that I didn’t think it was a good idea because I was a Christian and I was expecting to be killed shortly and if I agreed to feed these men and was killed before I could serve them then they would go hungry.
The man wasn’t taking no for an answer even though I further explained that with expecting to be killed I had not gone grocery shopping and didn’t have any food in the house. He still wasn’t accepting anything short of me agreeing to contribute to this meal… so finally I agreed after he told me that perhaps I was a little ‘squirrelly’.

I needed a larger roasting pan than I had so I sent Vic out to go buy one. He came back with a huge one. He had to bring it home on a wheel barrow. It had large legs and a ceramic animal head on it. It would never have fit into a normal oven but in my dream I was quite pleased with it and decided it would be great to roast potatoes in it -- that would be my contribution to this meal.
The day came for us to bring the food to these men and they were already gathered in a large room. The men were shabbily dressed and unshaven. Before the meal was started a man obviously in charge addressed these men asking them to stand if they had had a change of religious faiths since their last meeting. One of the men stood…. And I thought.. “They are taking note for when the killing starts.” I knew it was now only a matter of time.

OK.. so you have the idea by now that I am a crazy dreamer …. Always have been !!

Every one of the details in my dream I can connect back to conversations or comments made to me the previous day, although taken individually they made a whole lot more sense than the crazy quilt my untended mind wove them into.
I think not one of us would argue with the fact that we have a subconscious mind that keeps on working when we are asleep – even though it sometimes seems to lack intelligent discretion as to how to use the information stored in our brains that it obviously has access to.

However, I think few of us have spent much time considering that perhaps, to a greater extend than we realize, our conscious mind is influenced or controlled by our subconscious. We may think that we are consciously in control of our thoughts, our deeds, our actions, our decisions… when in reality the very converse might be true!

I watched a documentary on TV the other night that really made me think.

The documentary detailed a study done on this very subject. What they found is that not only do we have a subconscious mind but we also have two ways of seeing.
One is the obvious - our physical eyes relaying sight information to our conscious mind --- but then they learned that we have another sight path we are not even aware of.

They did an experiment that consisted of flashing a word very quickly across a blank screen. Most people could catch it. But then they used what they called a mask … a jumble of lines clumped together. When the mask appeared on the screen very quickly following the flashed word – no one saw the word... only the mask and yet when they were asked if the word that they did not see look more like ‘this’ or like ‘this’ they were all able to pick out the word that looked most like the word that had been flashed onto the screen. So even though consciously they had not ‘seen’ the word, their choice of which word they chose when given the multiple option was ruled by something they were not aware of in their conscious mind.

My mind was racing toward the spiritual implications of this study!
I love when God’s Word is confirmed by scientific studies – often done by men who do not profess any belief in a Creator God!!

Does scripture not teach us that we are not to be ruled by our ‘outer’ man but rather by our ‘inner’ man... our spiritual man within us?
“Rather let it be the hidden person of the heart, with the incorruptible beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is very precious in the sight of God. (I Peter 3:4)

The outer man is to die... so the inner man can live in righteousness in the image of Christ.

“Therefore put to death your members which are on the earth……. put on the new man who is renewed in knowledge according to the image of Him who created him” (Col. 3:5,10)

Consider …. If my subconscious mind takes what my conscious mind feeds it and works with it ‘behinds the scenes’ where I am not aware… then what if my spirit takes what I give it and works with it ‘behind the scenes’ where I am not aware. Then, if this is true I will be influenced in a powerful way to act and react and think... not according to my conscious physical brain but rather my ‘inner man’ or my spirit!!

Look what God’s Word says in Psalm 51:6 “Behold You desire truth in the inward parts and in the HIDDEN part You will make me to know wisdom.”

That is an incredible concept, don’t you think?

While there seems to be little wisdom in how my subconscious mind uses or abuses the information it is fed….we have a decided advantage in our spirits.
“By this we know that we abide in Him, and He in us, because He has given us of His Spirit.” (I John 4:13)

If we belong to the Lord we have His Spirit in us watching over and working with our spirit… using what we give Him to work with and applying the wisdom of God to make it truly life changing.

But there is a catch, isn’t there. The Holy Spirit can only work with what we give Him. If we do not feed our spirits with the Word of God then perhaps the Holy Spirit must sit idle.
Interesting isn’t it ? that both our subconscious mind and our spirit are fed with words?

And maybe we need to think more seriously about what we do allow through our 'gates' -- our eyes , our ears -- because maybe the words , the sights are NOT gone when we turn off the TV set or close that book, or walk out of the place where we really shouldn't have been. Maybe they continue working in a hidden place to conform us to the image of what we have seen or heard.

And maybe when we spend time in God's word, or fill our spirit with worship through prayer or music .... that is NOT gone either when we turn to go do other things. How encouraging to think that God's Word in us is working in hidden places to make us wise in the things of the Lord.

As we become mature and strong in the Lord, perhaps maturity is not so much that we have controlled our conscious mind as it is that we have fed our spirit and grown strong from the inside out !!

“That he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man” (Eph.3:16)