The Power of Belief and January 6th!
I agree with those who believe January 6, 2021 will go down in history as one of several days of infamy etched into the American consciousness. I suspect you may have also experienced feelings such as shock, disbelief, horror, disgust, outrage, helplessness, fear, and more. I was both sickened and heartbroken as I watched this violent desecration of our nation's capital being carried out by people carrying confederate flags, Jesus flags, and many wearing crosses around their necks. Sadly, one of these people, who was pictured with a big grin carrying the podium of the Speaker of the House (and who has since been arrested), is a “neighbor” of all of us from Parrish.
One of the tragedies of this entire event is many of the people saw themselves as patriots when in fact they had become seditionist criminals, who rather than standing up for the values of our country were betraying them in a reprehensible way. Add to this, many may have even seemed like normal American citizens and even “neighbors” most days. How can this be?
I think it has to do with the power of belief. Often, we tend to ignore just how powerful belief can be. It is too easy to equate belief to intellectual agreement with or acceptance of an idea. Belief is far deeper and far more powerful than that. I find it helpful to keep remembering where belief really lies in relationship to our behavior. I first learned of this reading, Dr. Shad Helmstetter’s book, What to Say When You Talk to Your Self. The basic concept is set forth in short form as: Results > Behavior > Feelings > Attitudes > Beliefs > Thoughts. Translated, the formula says: Our results are caused by our behavior; our behavior, by our feelings; our feelings, by our attitudes; our attitudes, by our beliefs; and our beliefs, by our thoughts.
The key takeaway is, if you really want to make a change in your life, you need to change your thoughts. And this is also where the rub is. The thoughts that shape our beliefs are far deeper than the realm of intellectual acceptance. They are thoughts that are either so deeply ingrained that they are part of our automatic sub-conscious processes or we already believe them to be true (even if they are not, which in reality is almost always the case).
This helps explain why folks often struggle with Jesus’ teachings. At an intellectual level they accept and agree but at a far deeper level their internal message is: it sounds good but that’s not really true, that’s not the way life really is. The result is typically guilt, shame, or hypocrisy or a combination of two or all three.
Prayer and reading the bible are the most significant tools we have for changing our thoughts: Prayer that is focused on listening for and to God and reading the bible with a spirit of openness and expectation. This is exactly the opposite of the way most approach and practice both. Both, therefore, require unlearning and relearning, but the effort is deeply rewarding and life-giving.
When our beliefs are rooted in the truth this kind of prayer and reading of the bible brings to our life experience, good and wonderful things can and will happen. When they are rooted in lies and misplaced trust, hurtful and destructive things happen. We witnessed that on January 6th.
Grace and Peace, John