Scriptures: Romans 12:2, Romans 7:15-20

Escaping Ruts

Imagine yourself sledding down a hill covered with fresh snow. As you steer your sled, it begins to create a path. If you were to spend an entire afternoon sledding down that same path, then your sled would wear deep grooves into it, creating ruts in the snow and making it difficult to steer in other directions.

You lay down mental paths in a similar way. When you choose the same negative thought or make the same poor choice over and over again, you create a rut in your mental path that can be tricky to get out of. Then, try as you might to steer another course, you slide into the rut and follow it all the way down the hill.

It becomes a challenging undertaking to forge new paths because the worn paths are deeper and faster, or more “neurologically entrenched” as it’s described in neuroscience. In this way, mental training is just like sledding down a snowy hill. If you continuously choose a destructive path, you strengthen the thoughts and behaviors associated with it, possibly to the extent that those thoughts and behaviors become automatic. In short, the paths you choose establish your habits.

Every repetition of an action increases the likelihood of that same action recurring in the future, so whatever you do consistently becomes what you do automatically. This is likely a biological component that explains why people persist in doing the very things they do not want to do, just as it’s explained in Romans 7:15–20. But you can change! The same brain mechanisms that get you into a rut can also help you escape it.

If you want paths that lead to good, virtuous thoughts and actions, then you need to practice those that demonstrate the fruit of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. By replacing destructive pathways with healthy ones and practicing them consistently, the healthy pathways become entrenched in your brain as your automatic, go-to thoughts and behaviors.

Takeaway: Whatever you do consistently becomes what you do automatically.

Scripture: 2 Corinthians 10:4-5

Building Brain Pathways

Similar to yesterday’s sledding metaphor, think of your toxic thoughts, destructive behaviors, or addictions as a cement superhighway inside your brain and your healthy thoughts, righteous actions, or sobriety as a narrow, dirt path somewhere off to the side of the highway.

When under stress, your brain seeks the most efficient route, the superhighway, not the narrow unbeaten path. In order to replace the problem thought or behavior, you must deconstruct the superhighway and build up the dirt path. Think godly thoughts for thirty seconds, and you have spent thirty sec­onds expanding the small path.

Old neural pathways are worn and easy to tread, so your brain will want to reroute to the highway. When this happens, you must make a conscious decision to return to the small path, and you must choose that small path again and again before it becomes the easier one to walk.

At first, you might have to make that conscious deci­sion to reroute ten times a minute or more, but each time you return to the small path, you remove a slab of cement from the superhighway and place it on the side path. Eventually, you only need to switch back to the path maybe five times a minute, then a few times every ten minutes, then a few times every few days, and so on. This mental rerouting work gradually converts the destructive superhighway into a small path and the small path into a healthy, life-benefiting superhighway.

This brain path construction project is also why you can’t give up after a failure. The hard truth is that making any kind of change almost always includes some degree of failure. But when you fail, you don’t lose your hard work because your brain hasn’t rebuilt its former destructive superhighway. At least not yet.

Get back on the path to continue building the brain pathways you want. And imagine leading a life in which good actions and thoughts flow naturally. It’s possible!

Takeaway: Any kind of change almost always includes some degree of failure.

Scriptures: 2 Corinthians 10:4-5, Romans 7:15-20, Matthew 6:25-27

Redirecting and Replacing

Don’t think of a pink elephant. What did you just think of? Probably a pink elephant. This paradox illustrates a trap-like feature that lives inside your brain: the more you try to suppress a thought, the more intrusive it becomes. This is why a willpower approach doesn’t work.

When you try to resist a temptation, you end up focus­ing on the temptation. In doing so, you start down the mental pathway of that very sin, possibly deepening it. If you tell your­self, “I must not eat candy. I must not eat candy,” then you are still thinking about candy, strengthening that area of the brain, and now you want candy more than ever before! The harder you try to escape a brain trap like this, the further it ensnares you. In biblical terms, it becomes a “stronghold.”

The key to escaping a stronghold is not to attempt to rid yourself of the struggle through sheer willpower but rather to counter it by trying something new, preferably something healthy, productive, and enjoyable—something like helping others. It is no wonder why programs like Alcoholics Anonymous encourage addicts to serve others.

This replacement approach not only grows a new brain circuit, but it also releases dopamine, a chemical in your brain that makes you feel happy, and this chemical helps strengthen the new brain circuit too! Instead of resisting a bad habit, redirect and replace it with a new one. This is also how the practice of memorizing Scripture can help overcome strongholds.

Find and memorize a verse that speaks to your issue, and whenever the issue comes up, repeat your chosen verse in your head. For example, if you struggle with anxiety, memorize Matthew 6:25–27 that tells of God’s loving care so that your brain focuses on that comforting truth instead.

Takeaway: Instead of resisting a bad habit, redirect and replace it with a new one.

Scripture: Philippians 4:8

Retraining with Imagination

Fun fact: your brain can’t tell the difference between performing an action in your imagination and performing it in reality. Like we learned yesterday, when it comes to the formation of your brain’s pathways, the more you practice good actions in your mind, the more likely you are to convert those good actions into automatic behaviors.

Because your imagination impacts who you are, you must ask yourself if you are thinking of ways to do good, to help others, and to successfully resist temptation, or are you imagining giv­ing up on whatever change you want to make? Are you imagining worst-case scenarios and constructing highways in your brain for anxiety, or are you imagining the best and fostering hope? Do you imagine revenge or forgiveness?

Imaginative roleplay can also help you overcome sin by training and making proper reactions to temptation automatic. You can devise and rehearse specific plans in your mind, such as “I will do X in the event of Y.” That way, when such an event occurs, you will respond appropriately and instinctively. When imagining yourself facing a temptation, for exam­ple, it’s easy to think, I wouldn’t do that in real life though. Not so fast.

What you imagine changes you little by little, so whatever you assume is impossible in real life slowly becomes ever more possible. That’s why it’s important to imagine yourself doing the right thing so that you establish it as an automatic response. That is, you will do the right thing without having to think twice about it because you’ve trained yourself to respond that way.

Imagination is a powerful force for shaping and changing your brain. Because the brain activates and reinforces the same path­ways when imagining an action as it does when performing an action, you become what you imagine. That means your imagi­nation can help or hinder your moral development.

Takeaway: Your brain can’t tell the difference between performing an action in your imagination and performing it in reality.

Scriptures: Hebrews 10:24-25, Colossians 3:16

Building a Support Team

There are two aspects to faith: one is faith in Jesus Christ’s death and resurrection for eternal life, and the other is day-to-day faith in God’s promises. Many people embrace the first aspect but struggle with the second, especially when the going gets tough and it becomes easier to fall into destructive thoughts and habits. To strengthen your day-to-day faith and to establish a healthy thought life, you must remind yourself of God’s goodness, God’s love, and God’s promises, promises that he cares for you and is trustworthy for example.

The collective work of dismantling destructive brain superhighways, growing good ones, focusing on righteous things, training through imagination, and growing your daily faith in God is a substantial undertaking. And you’ll find that some destructive brain paths are so deep and so strong that you, alone, cannot change them. You need a brain change support team!

You need others to help you identify the parts of yourself in need of change and to help motivate you to make your brain changes stick. Not to mention the positive feelings that come from supportive friends can go a long way. Attend small groups for support or seek professional help if needed. Some people might want to consider a full-on treatment center. Others may benefit from a church group and letting it serve as their “treatment cen­ter.”

The more people you have on your brain-change team, the more likely you are to succeed and make positive changes permanent. Share your struggles with others whom you trust so that they, too, can help you. You don’t need to, nor should you, do this alone.

Takeaway: The more people you have on your brain-change team, the more likely you are to succeed and make positive changes permanent.