Thinking About Context

Dear Bob,

I’ll try to address both of your letters in this one. I looked up the link you sent and noticed that at the end of it, after spending a ton of time describing the problem, they gave a simple set of things that would help the person who was suffering from dissociation: “Psychotherapy, which includes hypnosis, CBT, PTT, FT, DPT, and/or EMDR.” If you’ll look up all these treatments, you’ll see that they are all processes that help the client/patient think in different ways. At the end of the day, they are all ways of fighting the problem in a defensive way.

What I mean by a defensive way is that they are mostly treatments that help a person not think in certain problematic ways. They are ways to respond, not really ways to be aggressive. So, the patient never gets “over” the syndrome, illness, disease, or disorder. They attend to the symptoms but not the source of the problems. They don’t do that because they assume that the source is a disease or incurable illness. They must live with it forever and learn to live with it. Maybe in creative ways, but it is always hanging in the background waiting to jump out and ruin your day.

On the other hand, the Bible says, “out of the abundance of the heart proceeds thoughts and intentions.” This means that the Biblical way to overcome thoughts that don’t bring glory to God is to draw near to God and let him transform you from the inside out. Some of this means, giving the memories of “painful things that happened” to him and leaving them with him. It may mean, asking him to create new memories for you to think about and then thinking about them. It certainly involves you drawing near to him so that he can create in you a new heart.

Overall, it seems to me that what the psychologists have identified as “dissociation” is really a problem of self-control. The article said it was a “break in how your mind handles information. You may feel disconnected from your thoughts, feelings, memories, and surroundings.” After describing all of this, the recommended treatment is directed toward controlling your thoughts, emotions, memories, and surroundings. You need to remember that all this is non-Christians trying to figure out how to live without God in a world that God created.

Does the Bible have anything to say about thoughts, feelings, memories, and surroundings? Absolutely. Here’s an example, “And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God” (Ro 12:2).  Here’s another one, “For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren” (Ro 8:29). In fact, this kind of language is all over the place in the Bible. God is in the business of transforming us into the image of his Son. This begins with making us holy and continues to transform us so that we think, act, feel, and behave like Jesus. In short, he gives us new hearts and minds.

I think I’ve mentioned this before, but I’ll say it again. Forgiveness means “not remembering.” I don’t think we can forgive unless a person asks, but we can “not remember.” We can give the situation to God and ask him to deal with it. And we can, as a result, get on with our lives and run off down the road, skipping and hopping, and praising God.

I really think you need to get past the idea that secular culture has anything to say to you about behavior, thinking, feeling, and being. They are pagans, wandering around in the dark, trying to explain things without any thought to the One who created all these things. And as a result, they are trapping you in a morass of hopelessness and a kind of insanity. I’m afraid that if you continue studying those guys and leaving your Bible on the shelf, you will fall into their endless, broken-minded trap. And just so you know this includes Christians who are TRAITORS to the God of the Bible by encouraging you to spend any time at all in that godless and rebellious world.

My advice to you is to repent of thinking about yourself in your own terms. Instead, pull out all the letters and conversations we’ve had and believe what I’ve said about you. Then, or actually, at the same time, get your Bible back out and read about what God says about his children. Then, as you read, believe it and don’t doubt it. Then, think about what your fiancé thinks about you and believe her. If you can’t believe her, you need to cut her loose and let her get on with her life. If she can’t judge who you are better than that, she isn’t the woman for you. On the other hand, if she thinks of you the way you think of yourself when left to yourself, you should also cut her loose because that would be really really bad.

Finally, you need to GO TO WAR!!!! If you have no idea what that means, you should rent a good war movie. Braveheart springs to mind. You are in a war; you just don’t know it. But you’re getting all shot up and maimed. Made worthless. You need to get your Bible out, forget about yourself, believe what God says about what he wants his saints to do and be, and just run off down the road rejoicing because you’re on the winning team. And again, believe that you’re one of the team members that are helping to win the war.

I really wish you could come to Moscow for a year or so to get the flavor of what we have going here. Maybe you can read Doug’s blog, join with the Bible reading challenge stuff (not just read the bible but listen to all the information they put out), and join the Cross Politic folks. Read the websites that hate us like, Facebook where I’m currently prominently represented. The battle, here in Moscow, is much more engaged than it is in most other places, but it’s coming to you all…unless you just collapse in a psychological puddle.

There you go. If nothing else, I’ve distracted you for a while.

Image by Johannes Krasser from Pixabay