Get right back into the flow
Published: Mon, 09/01/25
Updated: Mon, 09/01/25
Sessions Include:Lesson #1 Lesson #2 Lesson #3 Lesson #4 Lesson #5 Lesson #6 Lesson #7 Lesson #8 Lesson #9 Lesson #10 Lesson #11 Lesson #12 Lesson #13 Lesson #14 Lesson #15 Lesson #16 Lesson #17 Lesson #18 The Me I Want to Be / Lesson #19 The Me I Want to Be / Lesson #20 The Me I Want to Be / Lesson #20 The Me I Want to Be / Lesson #21 The Me I Want to Be / Lesson #22
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Difficult relationships can give the Evil One a foothold, but God has wired us so that in times of intense difficulty we have a kind of built-in moment to turn to the Spirit for help. As we noted in chapter 15, the primary place in the brain that processes strong negative emotions such as rage and fear is called the amygdala. When this is removed from certain animals, they become incapable of rage and fear. Normally, when input comes into the brain, it goes to the neocortex for processing. In about 5 percent of cases, however, when something extremely emotional happens, it goes to the amygdala, and the thinking part of the brain gets short-circuited. Mom is in a grocery store, in a hurry, so she is tense. She has her three-year-old next to her and her eighteen-month-old in a shopping cart. Suddenly the three-year-old grabs a box of cocoa puffs. “Put it down,” says Mom. But the three-year-old is determined to have them. “Put it down!” Mom repeats. At this point the eighteen-month-old, who has been holding a glass of jelly, throws it to the ground from the cart, and it shatters. What happens to Mom next is what researchers call “an amygdala hijack.” The amygdala takes over the thinking process, and Mom goes ballistic. She picks up the three-year-old, drapes him over one arm, carries him doubled over like a pretzel, and she is shaking the shopping cart. The kid is yelling, “Put me down! Put me down!” Mom is out of control, suffering from what researchers call “cognitive incapacitation.” Rational thought is no longer an option. But there is an aspect of our circuitry that gives us hope. Impulses formed in the brain can be measured during neurosurgery. I decide that I am going to move my hand, and then that impulse travels to the hand. But in between the brain activity and the movement of the hand, there is what one researcher calls the “life-giving quarter-second.” There is a quarter-second between when that impulse takes place in your brain and when that action takes place in your body. And that quarter-second—although it doesn’t sound like very long in the life of the mind—is huge. The apostle Paul wrote, “In your anger do not sin … and do not give the devil a foothold.” That quarter-second is the time when the Holy Spirit can take control. That is when you can give the foothold to the Holy Spirit or you can give it to sin. That one quarter-second in your mind can be an opportunity to say, “Spirit, I’ve got this impulse right now; should I act on it?” It was a long hot day, the car had broken down once, the air conditioning wasn’t working, the kids weren’t behaving, and Nancy wasn’t being too good either. I tried enticing the kids into “the quiet game,” but they weren’t going for it. I got lost. I was frustrated. The kids spilled food. Finally, the noise level went beyond what I could bear. There was a life-giving quarter second, but I blew right past it. I wasn’t interested. And I used language on my kids that I had never used before, that I never thought I would. It is amazing how the desire to hurt someone you love can be so strong in your body one moment and then lead to such pain when you indulge it. But another piece of good news is that when you blow it—and you will blow it—God sends another quarter-second right behind. And you can get right back into the flow.
John Ortberg, The Me I Want to Be: Becoming God’s Best Version of You (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2009), 12–13. If you would like to explore this new study, it is available on Amazon, as well as part of Good Questions Have Groups Talking Why Study Books?My church recently transitioned to using books as curriculum in our Sunday School. The reason is simple. My life has been profoundly influenced by the reading of books. I don’t think my life has ever been changed by any curriculum piece I have ever read. Ever. I have actually surveyed a number of groups I have taught over the years, asking: Has your life ever been changed by any curriculum? The most common response is for people to laugh out loud. Our first study was the Bless book by Dave and Jon Ferguson. It is a great study on relational lifestyle evangelism. About half-way through the the study, we did a survey to help determine what we would study next. No one wanted to go back to the curriculum. Not. One. Person. The #1 choice for what to study next was a tie:
We will be studying these two books over the next year and a half or so. Here is what Amazon says about Ortberg’s book: The Me I Want to Be will help you discover spiritual vitality like never before as you learn to "live in the flow of the spirit." Why does spiritual growth seem so difficult? God's vision for your life is not just that you are saved by grace, but that you also learn to live by grace, flourishing with the Spirit flowing through you. And this book will show how God's perfect vision for you starts with a powerful promise: All those who trust in God "will be like a tree planted by the water that sends out its roots by the stream. It does not fear when heat comes; its leaves are always green. It has no worries in a year of drought and never fails to bear fruit" (Jeremiah 17:7-8). Pastor and best-selling author John Ortberg first helps gauge your spiritual health and measure the gap between where you are now and where God intends you to be. Then he provides detailed tasks and exercises to help you live in the flow of the Spirit, circumventing real-world barriers - pain and sorrow, temptations, self-doubt, sin - to flourish even in a dark and broken world. As you start living in the flow, you will feel:
God invites you to join him in crafting an abundant and joy-filled life. The Me I Want to Be shows you how to graciously accept his invitation. I have just completed a new, 22-week study of John Ortberg’s book, The Me I Want to Be that we will be using in my church. (I had previously done a 7-week study.) I have always thought that using books as a curriculum would be a good idea, and I have written a lot of book studies over the years. One of the things that actually using books as curriculum caused me to realize has to do with cost. By writing a study on every chapter of this book, instead of my previous study that had a lesson for every section, the cost drops to below what we were paying for curriculum. Better curriculum. Cheaper cost. Win. Win.
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