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A weekly podcast especially for our Prayer Time community
[00:00:00] George La Du: Let's pray, huh?
Father, thank You for today. This is the day You have made. We will rejoice and be glad in it.
[00:00:08] Pastor Addy: Yeah.
We thank You that we get to assemble together. You say we're two or more gathered in Your midst. You're here. Father, thank You for being here. And we speak blessing over Pastor Jared.
And thank You that he's bringing this. bringing food for us that we might run the race that You've set before each one. And I speak blessing over he and his family and all of his activities that he's got going on, what's coming up and all Your goodness being poured out on each one of us. being manifested in so many different ways. So thank You for today. We receive this in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen.
You're on my friend.
[00:00:52] Jared Roth: Thank you. Thank you. Hey friends. I'm probably going to make more notice of my notes today than usual. That is because I love you. In the best interest of time and reducing the possibility of boredom, I should probably mind my notes today because I have an awful lot to say.
And if it's not in my notes, it probably isn't all that helpful. There he is.
[00:01:23] Group: There he is. There he is. Sorry.
[00:01:33] Nilaksha Fernando: There you are.
I was trying to join on Zoom and it wouldn't let me. Oh, dang it.
[00:01:42] George La Du: Oh, maybe that's why people aren't showing up.
[00:01:44] Nilaksha Fernando: Yeah.
[00:01:44] Carl Nicolson: I'm glad you're here. But we'll look into that. Did you check, did you click on the link in the email today?
[00:01:50] Nilaksha Fernando: Oh.
[00:01:52] Carl Nicolson: That would be probably why, because we just today changed the link. It just changed.
[00:02:02] Nilaksha Fernando: Okay.
[00:02:03] Carl Nicolson: If you look at the email from Chad, click on that.
[00:02:06] Jared Roth: If you have some good things to eat and drink, you can bring them on down, we won't mind. I may drool a little bit, lead your way. So some of you are aware that Ann and I returned fairly recently from Southern Chile and Argentina where we spent a month traipsing around in Patagonia. I did not bring pictures.
Only missionaries are allowed to bring videos.
[00:02:29] Carl Nicolson: Slides?
[00:02:30] Jared Roth: We we had a particular interest in one of the newest national parks in Chile. It's called, not imaginatively Patagonia National Park. But it was fairly recently not only founded but created it. Southern Chile and Argentina historically, other than the protected lands, has been massive ranches, mostly sheep in that area, and often to Argentina to the east side, cattle.
But the ranches are so large that you can go 50 to 100 miles and not see any buildings from them. So there's massive land grants that were given. However in the last 40 years, land has been being purchased primarily by wealthy people in the U. S. and then gifted. Back to the governments as national parks.
So we were particularly interested in the story of one where one of those benefactors happens to be buried. It we had to get there drive literally a few hundred miles on a gravel road. There's only one Road, north, south, Philly, and south. Travel. We stayed in the finest accommodations in a tent campground.
It was a dome. There was one dome available. I reserved it six months in advance. We stayed in the dome. We of course had hitchhikers with us because if you have a car on that road, you pick up hitchhikers. That's the culture. And most people are hitchhiking don't have cars. Most are people in their 20s and early 30s from around the world.
In our 30 hitchhikers, we had, I think, 13 different countries on the road, so we had a wonderful time. On this particular day it was a fairly long hike for us. It was 15 miles and it was a little over 4, 000 miles up and down. So we started
[00:04:04] Ken Eagon: 4, 000 feet.
[00:04:05] Jared Roth: 4, 000 feet, thank you.
By the way, the keep me online for the rest of the day as well. I may actually have an important topic and I make that kind of error. So yeah, my fact checker here, my lovely fact checker to the right. It was a big day for us. We started in a valley and we went up a ridge. The valley was this amazing U shaped glacial valley, probably about 30 miles apart from side to side of the two ridges.
We went up the ridge, and then across the ridge, there were five glacial lakes across the top of the ridge, and then back down the ridge in a loop. And on that entire hike, which was most of the day for us we saw eight people. So this is remote and wonderful. And Ann and I have a lot to talk about. We just celebrated our 46th anniversary this week.
We've known each other for 56 years. But we've also heard just about everything the other one has to say. The time with you. And so when it's the two of us, we don't talk all the time. And so a part of this whole early retirement adventure, nature experience for us of two and a half to three years ago.
is experiencing God's nature in some ways that we haven't and having times to think and reflect. You're familiar with the verse in Romans 1 20. It says, For since the creation of the world, God's invisible qualities, namely His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen being understood from what has been made so that people are without excuse.
I don't know what you think about the length of history of the earth or of humanity. It doesn't make a lot of difference to me. I happen to think that there's been humans on the planet for a long time. I think there's humans on the planet long before the Jews and the biblical revelation that we have from God to those chosen people.
And the biblical revelation we have from the New Testament, and so there's the question not only currently of people who haven't heard the Gospel, but there's the question of, potentially, in my view of history eons of time that human beings as bright and intelligent and well attended as we are did not have that revelation of the Judeo- Christian revelation from God.
So we're in God's justice. Is there the opportunity for them to have responded to the Gospel without the revelation that we have? And there's not a lot in the Bible about that, but Paul makes it very clear what he thinks about it in this verse. For since the creation of the world, God's invisible qualities, His eternal power and His divine nature.
Here's my parenthetic question: do we need any more than that? Seeing and understanding God's eternal power and His divine nature, which includes all of who He is. It is seen in what has been made, and so none of this is without excuse. So part of our point of view has been, let's go see some things about the first incarnation, as I call it, about expressing Himself and His power and His divine nature in creation.
And let's have some revelation of God in these settings. So the thoughtfulness is part of it, the experience of being immersed in relatively untouched nature. Is a great part of our experience and our journey. Up there on that trip in the Petagonia National Park, one of about 20 national parks in Chile, I was thinking about our temporal experience.
Temporal as in past, present, and future. Because I have found myself in the past year or so, not only interested in being mindful in the moment. but really working on developing a point of view about the present. And part of that is because I've discovered about myself that I primarily have not lived in a current presence.
That much of my world has been living in the past or in the future rather than in the present. So I'm investing present time worrying about Or fretting about the past, which evokes negative emotions. Or remembering wonderful memories of the past, which evokes positive emotions. Or anxiety about the future, about what might happen.
And experiencing anxious emotions. Or, in my case, getting to plan the future, which evokes positive emotions. And all this stuff is happening in my brain. The thoughts As well as what the thoughts trigger in terms of neurology in my brain that causes me then to have these emotional experiences. And so I've been thinking about this temporal experience that we have.
And in that, I came across a fairly interesting quote. I wish I could attribute it. I can't. I don't know where I got it. I wrote it down. I like it. But I don't remember who it came from, but here it is.
I frame the past with gratitude, the present with savouring, and the future with hope.
I frame the past with gratitude, the present with savouring, the future with hope.
I tore Neil's wall apart to take it. Thank you for this prop, Neil. I appreciate this a lot. Yeah, so a frame. A frame, the noun, is a stable structure that encloses something. The verb to frame means to put something in.
Stable structure. So when I say I frame the past, I have a thousand other options about the frame I could use. The size, the clarity, the point of view, what it's called, whether the frame is overwhelming for what I'm going to put in it, or whether it's understated. I have, but all of these choices are mine.
Thank you. And this wisdom says, I choose to frame the past with a frame called gratitude. And now I'm going to look at my memories of the past, and I'm going to choose to have the lens looking through this frame of gratitude. I frame the past with gratitude. I frame the present with savouring. I have a variety of flavors or taste experiences.
We have five, I think, or six. I'm discovering another one that there's some debate about. I don't remember what it was. But we know that we can frame the present with bitterness. I can be a victim in the moment. I can feel mistreated, uncared for, discarded. I can choose to have a sweet flavor about it.
Which might be too sticky sweet for some of us. I like this author's idea of I choose to frame the presence with savoury. It's the savoury that goes with the sweet. It's the bacon that goes along with the waffles for our breakfast.
I savour the present. So I frame the past with gratitude, the present with savoury, and the future with hope.
I will choose to reach into the future. And while it is entirely uncertain and has the options for all kinds of fortune or misfortune to happen, I will choose to frame the future with hope. Now that's been helpful for me and I want to pause for a minute because you might have some comments or some questions.
I frame the past, the present, and the future.
[00:12:23] George La Du: The one thought that comes to me is, what He, Jesus said
I don't know, He said something really good. That's for sure. Yeah. Wasn't great, right? But He was talking about living in the present. So that's why He's called the Great I Am. Because He's the God of the present. And when I tend to look at the past, oftentimes regret arises. What I should have, what I could have done.
And when I look to the future, anxiety and worry become my friend. And I've, I'm training myself to use those two emotions as a smoke alarm to say, Yeah. You're not in the present. Lord, help me live in the present because that's where You are.
[00:13:17] Pastor Addy: Enjoying the moment. Oh, excuse me. I'm sorry.
[00:13:20] George La Du: Don't point that at me.
[00:13:21] Pastor Addy: You always remind me about Philippian 4.
[00:13:25] Jared Roth: Yeah.
[00:13:27] Pastor Addy: Whatsoever things are lovely.
Whatsoever things are pure. And you did a good job in exegeting that to us. And he put it this way, that I don't have to take the negative thought.
I don't have to. And he reminded me of the story of David. I was keeping my father's sheep. So he plunged in his memory, he pushed his memory button, but his memory was intended to praise God and to see the things God has done for him. When I remember there was a period that we took about two or three months talking about Thanksgiving.
In this particular place. And when I walk in here and I saw all those, he has some kind of name for me. He say second. Initially he used to call me. I know director, they were put on the website. So when I walked in and saw all those things on the board, all those degrees and tape, and so I said that thing is a memorial.
That remind us that all these years I've been going to school as a child and Jesus has been keeping me, watching over me, sustaining me, and now I've got this thing on the wall that I've achieved because of the goodness of God. So that certificate remind them how good God is, how sustaining He is, how loving He is.
And He kept them in the midst of everything, and they achieved that. Another person can look at that like Nebuchadnezzar and say, look at what I have done. And talking about the three dimensions you just mentioned, the past, the present, and the future. You can look back in the past. And you can just see all the different things God has done in all those years in Oregon State and God's sustaining and helping him.
And now God is saying, I saw a memorial on the wall to the glory of God. And then he can enjoy the moment.
[00:15:25] Jared Roth: savour.
[00:15:25] Carl Nicolson: Do you still have the five stamps from the guy who's you're going to need to be here longer?
[00:15:29] Jared Roth: Oh, yeah. savour.
I be with be with all of you, of course the fear of you is in me. And I know that the truth that we talk about has to be rooted in revealed scripture.
You don't have to go far. You've mentioned two already, and the scripture is filled with this point of. This is not a new idea. This is truth that is God's truth. But I want to use this story, and let's go back to what Philippians, to Philippians chapter 1, because Paul in my opinion exemplifies this so well.
You may later want to read verses 1 through 28, which is the whole section. I am taking snippets out, but I think that if you were to read the whole text, you would agree that I'm not doing violence to the snippets. That, that even though we're not providing the context, and you're all familiar with the context as well, it's Paul's Philippian story.
He started it because of an extraordinary vision that he got in a dream. Thank you. This is extraordinary for Paul. He doesn't usually have that kind of over the top Holy Spirit guidance in his missionary tour. This is extraordinary, that he has the Macedonian saying come over. The first major city in Macedonia is Philippi.
He ends up at Philippi. They go down to the river. They begin to evangelize, and a church is founded. And Paul is, and Silas are beaten. They're imprisoned. You know the story. They sing at night and an earthquake comes. Now there's an extraordinary release from prison. The officials say, please leave town.
Paul says, no way. I'm going to make a big deal out of this. You're going to acknowledge my citizenship. I'm not going out of town easily. You're going to acknowledge who I am before I leave town.
[00:17:10] George La Du: After being beaten.
[00:17:12] Jared Roth: Yeah, after being beaten. So this is quite a big story. So Paul can remember that, can't he?
His misuse, being victimized, his following God with an extraordinary vision, and being beaten within an inch of his life, and in prison, yeah. Quite a story. That's his context. Now as he writes back to these people, where does he write from? Prison. He's back in prison. He is possibly on his way to beheadal, being beheaded.
Good. He is later, whether or not it's this imprisonment or one following that in Rome, he knows what the stakes are. Paul's Philippian story is tragic on a personal level. Not only is he imprisoned in Rome, which means that he's not able to fill his God- given calling to go out and start churches and to raise up leaders and then to care for those in an apostolic way.
But to add insult to injury, there are people who, spiting Paul, have taken the message of the Gospel that he was revealed and now are taking it and going nah, and they're going out and preaching because Paul can't and the word is getting back. They're doing it just to spite you because you can't.
They stole your message and they're out telling other people to spite you. This is Paul's context. So I'm very interested in how he's going to frame it. Because there's several ways he can go. Here's Paul. I'm cherry picking. Here's Paul. Philippians 1. 3. I thank my God every time I remember you. Not one hint about his mistreatment in Philippi.
He frames the past with, can you say it with me? Gratitude. In verse 12, and then I'm jumping into 18 about his presence. I want you to know, brothers and sisters, that what is happening to me is actually serving to advance the Gospel. And because of this, I rejoice. savouring being imprisoned, not being able to go out and preach and the fact that other people are spitefully taking his message to rub salt into his wounds.
I rejoice, he says. I am savouring the moment. This is a beautiful time to be alive. The future, verses 20 and skipping to 25. I eagerly expect and hope. I'm going to continue with all of you for your progress and your joy in the faith. He frames the future with hope. He may die. He does die, but he frames his future with hope.
So Paul, he says this light affliction, Paul frames his past with gratitude, his present with savouring, and his future with hope. Paul was not an optimistic denier. He was very aware of all of the facts. In fact, he commends the one who has been called the father of the faithful, Abraham, in Romans chapter 4, where it says now, and he tells this great story of Abraham's faith as an example to us.
He starts by saying he faced the facts that his body was as good as dead and the Sarah's womb. Faith starts with clearheaded viewing of the facts. There's no denial here. It's facing all the facts and saying, How am I going to frame those facts? With gratitude, with savouring, and with hope. My study about how we can thrive in the present and While dealing with the past and the future in an appropriate, helpful, and faithful way has led me toward some interesting study.
And I'm going to make reference to a book. I'm not necessarily recommending it to you. I just want to tell you that some of my thoughts today in this talk are directly influenced by this book. And I want to give credit where it's due. The author is Arthur Brooks. It's his book for this year. It's called _The Art and Science of Getting Happier, Build the Life You Want._
Last year two years ago, he wrote what was, for me, the book of the year, and I do recommend that one. It's called From _Strength to Strength_. He happens to be a follower of Jesus, and he is a scientist of the brain and a social scientist as well. I'm giving Arthur Brooks some credit. Viktor Frankl we're probably all familiar with, Holocaust survivor, wrote
Everything can be taken from a man but one thing. The last of the human freedoms. To serve one's, to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances. To choose one's own way.
So in other words, you can't choose your feelings, but you can choose your reactions to those feelings. Frankl went on to say, I love this, Between the stimulus and the response, there is a space. And in that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom. Isn't this how children are raised when they're raised in a good and healthy way?
Children are intuitively wired with the reaction, with the stimulus, right? A two year old throwing a tantrum is expressing her natural response to the stimulus she's received and the emotions that are evoked and she's acting out and expressing those. And a good parent will say to her " Use your words."
And the parent is saying, you've got your limbic system that's really fired up right now, and is giving you the emotion of anger. I want you to choose your words. And what happens is that stimulus now is moved to the prefrontal cortex, where reason and language are centered. And if you get a two or a three year old to move, Into forming language, she now is functioning in this executive center of the brain, whereas there's the possibility to choose a response that isn't driven by the emotion, but to choose a response into the future that is going to likely produce the better outcomes that we want.
That's what we call that maturity. Paul, as a part of the fruit of the Spirit, calls that self-control. There is something that happens between my stimulus, the emotion that's evoked, and my response. And I love how he says, it's in our response that lies our growth and our freedom. Viktor Frankl who was a psychiatrist, knew the basic structure of the brain.
You're familiar with it. First, there's our brain stem. Lower back part of our brain is attached directly to our spinal cord and most of the stimulus that comes into our brain comes through that source. The other source that doesn't is through our eyeball, which goes directly to the occipital lobe in the brain.
So what we see we see very quickly because there's no intermediary response that's happening. It's not coming through the braint stem. The other stuff comes primarily through our brain stem. The brain stem is extremely fast and blunt. The brainstem will keep you from getting killed in some situations, but it won't tell you how you should respond to nearly getting killed.
So it's fast, but it's blunt, and it sends then the signals on to the limbic system, which is back a little bit and certainly right in the center of the brain, which is a variety of structures. And the limbic system there begins to make sense of that stimuli in terms of emotions that we should feel that may help us. be motivated to respond in a way that's going to be helpful. So if there is a snake in the road in front of me, I get the quick response, which is blunt, which is there may be danger. I get the emotional response of the limbic system, which is fear flight. And then when I realized that it's a stick instead of a snake, The prefrontal cortex has come to bear and it has logically said this is actually a stick.
Now the rest of my brain can settle down again because it knows that danger isn't real. We need all three parts of the brain. Thank God we were created with those. The first gives us, the first gives us detection, the brain stem. The second gives us reaction. in the limbic system, and the third gives us decision, the neocortex.
So Paul says, I'm very aware of the facts of the past, I'm very aware of the facts of the present, and I have a pretty good idea of what some of the future options are. I'm going to make a decision about how I view those. I'm going to view the past with gratitude. I'm going to experience the present with savouring.
And I'm going to go to the future with confidence and hope. What we see Paul doing there is what we call metacognition. Metacognition is consciously moving what's happening in the limbic system, our awareness of emotion, and moving that into our prefrontal cortex so that we can use language and logic and reason to process that So that we can make a decision about how we're going to respond in a situation.
So we're separating reaction from the limbic system. And we're moving action into the prefrontal cortex. But that process is learned. It's called maturity. It's called self-control. It's not innate. Children who have not been raised well become adults who aren't adulting well and still live life primarily limbic system.
And we know these people. Our compassion toward them is an understanding part of how they got where they got. Our irritation with them is that they're very difficult to do life with because it's very hard for them to make decisions that are based upon the more mature thoughtfulness because they've learned to act and react out of the limbic system.
And so we want to learn how to let the prefrontal cortex have time to catch up with the limbic system and that's where there's the pause. So many of us have been told if you're angry, count to 10 before you speak, right? Thomas Jefferson said If you're angry, count to 10. If very angry, count to 30.
Which, by the way, he was onto something. Psychologists now tell us that 20 seconds is about the optimal time for us to give about 20 seconds to move from our awareness of emotion that's been able to thoughtfulness In the prefrontal cortex, to then make a verbal or a physical response in action, or no action, that is going to likely produce the favourable outcomes that we want.
Just metacognition suggests four simple things. First of all, consider your emotions. Be aware. I'm feeling angry. Somebody just cut me off. I'm going to Bible study and prayer meeting to somebody just cut me off. Boy, am I ever feeling angry right now?
If I act out of that, if I let the limbic system win, I'm going to do something in response to that, that probably isn't going to have the favourable outcomes that I want.
This week I have high accountability because grandchildren are We don't know how it fits in. Carry those emotions along as you're traveling around with me on the back of the car. So I'm particularly thoughtful about my reactions. So consider your emotions. And then secondly, observe them as though they were happening to someone else.
This creates further distance in space. Oh, isn't that interesting? Jared was just cut off, and he's feeling really angry right now. Look at that! And then the third thing is very powerful. Accept that emotion, on Jared's behalf. Jared has every right and reason to be angry right now. His brain thankfully worked right!
You It worked to let him know that there was potential danger. And that person cutting him off with a dangerous act evoked very helpful emotion for him to move him to action. Now, that driver has gone on so Jared doesn't need that anger anymore, but he's going to have to do something with the energy of that, because it's there, and that's the fourth thing.
So choose reactions that aren't based upon the negative emotions. very much. but on the outcomes that you prefer.
[00:30:38] Nilaksha Fernando: I saw this story about this taxi driver who was driving and somebody cut him off, and he smiled and waved at him, and the guy at the back said, why are you doing that? He cut you off, and you're smiling?
He says this is my story. Most people that are driving around are like garbage trucks. They're full of garbage. They want to dump their garbage on you. You can accept it. Or you just say no, no thanks. And then
[00:31:07] Jared Roth: Wow. Wow.
[00:31:11] Ken Eagon: Reminds me of what Addy said years ago, he said he doesn't get upset when some guy doesn't go in front of him when he sees the green light, he starts praying for him.
[00:31:20] Carl Nicolson: I'm not there yet. I'm not there yet.
[00:31:28] Pastor Addy: Be angry, but sin not, there's this there's this word we call cognitive dissonance. Yeah, and it's basically what you're talking about, where, and I like that, because every time I look at the life of David, when you're talking about the apostle Paul, he goes every he plays his memory, his imagination to benefit God and to benefit him, he pushed in his imagination and said, hey, Goliath, your head is coming up. He played his memory, say, while I was keeping my father's sheep, his bear came and God helped me. I killed it. The other lion came and I killed it. Then he punched in his imagination. Hold, say, I'm coming for your head. Seeing God, who'd give me the bear, would give me your head.
[00:32:17] Jared Roth: Yeah. I had a really profound experience yesterday. I walk for an hour out in the country about once every six weeks with Dr. Jim. Dr. Jim and I are friends. We have walked together for 15 years. He's about two years older than I. He's still practicing about half time. And when Dr. Jim met me, he did not like me very much.
And our first conversations for the first two to three years were not pleasant conversations. Thank you. We shared the same church, and he'd been there a lot longer than I had, but I had a lot more power. And, enough said about that.
Three months ago, to the day, Jim's wife Shelly died. For the past ten years, she suffered dementia. Increasing forms. Anna and I were there the day before she passed in their home. I walked with Jim the following week, at her service. So this is the third walk with Jim since Shelly's death. So Jim is interclocking, tells me this story.
He, he starts with a bit of a chuckle, which for a husband in grief is itself interesting. It tells me that he's done some processing. And so he laughs and he says, I've discovered that I am very angry. And he said, I'm not very familiar with this emotion. I haven't been an angry person, so he said, I knew that I was able to label this thing as anger.
He said, I didn't know I was angry. But he said, I did know that I was very irritated with our office manager. And he said, I began noticing some things about her that really irritated me. And I want to be thoughtful. She's been with me for many years. And I wanted to continue. She's a couple of years from retirement.
And I want to be helpful. And so I thought, I'm going to start writing stuff down that she's doing that's irritating me. And then I'm going to form a very thoughtful conversation with her. So I think it could be helpful. For example, he noticed that she laughs loud when she's talking with some of the long term patients.
So And and he wrote down you laugh too loud and it's rather unprofessional. And some of the conversations that she was having were he thought, awfully personal now, even though they'd been there many years, and he just said under the umbrella of we need to have a more professional office, he was listing these things.
And then he looked at me and he said I was about ready to go, I had my speech ready. I was about ready to go to her. I had several pages now of incidents. For unprofessional behavior that's irritating me. And it dawned on me that she hadn't changed a bit. And I wondered, why am I so irritated with her?
And he said, I discovered that I'm angry. And he said, I discovered that I refuse to be angry with God for letting my wife die. And I refuse to be angry with my wife for leaving me. So I'm taking it out on the opposite man. And so he chuckled again. And he said, I'm angry because I'm grieving and I've never grieved like this before.
I don't know what this is but if grief is the source of my anger then I'm going to have to continue to walk through this grief, believing that the anger will subside too.
[00:35:41] Carl Nicolson: Wow.
[00:35:44] George La Du: That's good.
[00:35:47] Jared Roth: And I am thinking. Spirit filled man. Self control. I'm thinking, mature human. Metacognition. Consider your emotions.
I'm angry. Observe them if they're happening to someone else. He stepped away and did some analysis. Accept them. He didn't deny it or stuff it. That's what he did. But he made some reactions and decisions that would be based not upon the anger and displacing it, but decisions that would be based upon the outcomes that he really wants.
He wants his office manager blessed, and he wants to heal from the suffering of his grief.
No surprise to you that when it comes to this idea of dealing with past and present pain and anxiety about the future, that science has revealed to us what the Bible has told us for a few thousand years. By far the most powerful means to deal with is metacognition. of moving from emotion into decision for favourable action is the practice of, you can guess it:
Gratitude.
So when study groups were divided into two, the first group was asked to spend three minutes reflecting on a past experience and to come up with five things that they were grateful for about it. And the control group was said, I just want you to think about a past experience for five minutes. The reportings of positive emotion of the gratitude group was over five times greater than the control group that just thought about something from the past.
No wonder Paul writes, he actually wrote earlier to the church the Thessalonians, and he says to them, I want you to give Thanks to God in all circumstances. I think the preposition is very important. He didn't say for all circumstances. There's something horribly wrong thanking God for evil things.
Paul was very thoughtful about that short word. " In everything." We find it in Paul's life so powerfully in the horrible circumstance that he was in. What did he choose to do? He chose to give thanks. And when he wrote to the church at Philippi, one of his big themes and stories was, in all circumstances, give thanks.
So are we doing okay? Want to talk a little bit more? I can wrap it up at any time. I warned you in advance, I'm sticking with my notes because I want more to talk about than we have the endurance of. I want to presume on the ability.
[00:38:56] George La Du: I'm a little stuck on the original thought of being down in Chile, Patagonia, and choosing to do more.
What I thought I heard you say was more intentionally in the present.
[00:39:16] Jared Roth: Yeah.
[00:39:16] George La Du: Is that what I heard?
[00:39:17] Jared Roth: It is.
[00:39:18] George La Du: Okay. And helping us to understand metacognition and the connection of the two.
[00:39:27] Jared Roth: Thank you. That's really a thoughtful question.
[00:39:31] George La Du: It's part of my metacognition.
[00:39:33] Jared Roth: Yeah, it absolutely is, yes.
[00:39:35] Nilaksha Fernando: Took him longer than 20 seconds.
[00:39:36] George La Du: I feel like you ought to give me five bucks every time I say that.
[00:39:41] Jared Roth: If I were to to image this with three frames, one in the past, one in the present, and the future, my earlier experience, the frame about the past was pretty big. My frame about the future, because I'm a futurist, is huge.
[00:39:58] George La Du: Yeah.
[00:39:59] Jared Roth: And my frame about the present is very small. Because it's primarily managing the past that comes to mind, but mostly it's living in the future, where I'm headed. And what dawned on me was I don't even want the frames equal sized. I want the present to be huge. And I want the past to be very small, and the future to be very small.
But I want them all. But what I'm doing is, now instead of drifting into a memory of the past, I am keeping that experience in the present. I will go back to the past, but I will engage it in the present. And the work of engaging this past, thoughtfulness and reflection around gratitude, Is present work.
Yes. That is growing me. It's benefiting me. It's helping me. And it's causing me to be more helpful to others and a better follower of Jesus. I'm grateful to my father. And when I go to the future and I do, and I love to plan, I just, it's the greatest joy for me. All kinds of happy hormones are going on in my brain when I'm out there in the future.
When I plan for the future, I want to be aware that I am doing this in the present because my future plans are fulfilling. values that I have, a commitment to my God, to my family, to my health and my etc. I am making future planning a present experience. I'm making past reflection a present experience.
I'm investing this experience right now in ways that are helpful and growth oriented and useful. I am not drifting to either place. I am going there in the present to gain and to glean and so on and so forth.
[00:41:46] George La Du: That's good. That's really good. Wow.
[00:41:52] Pastor Addy: I love that. Go ahead. Go ahead. Every time you're talking about freeing me and that stuff.
Every time Israel had an encounter with God. God would tell them to build this memorial, this pile of rocks to bring them into the present. That every time you look on the wall, like we're talking about the certificate and the thing you're gonna put on the wall, the frame. It brings you back into the moment.
So you can enjoy the moment. Because faith is always in the now, because it's a walk with God. So even though that thing happened in the past, but when you frame it, and you can engage it in the now, you benefit from it. We look at what God has done, so that's why they were always building the memorial, Acts chapter 10, Cornelius said, The God of arms has come before me as a memorial.
He said, Peter, the man is too good to die, to go to hell, go preach to him.
We go and enjoy the moment. Enjoying the moment that this guy is doing this thing and I recognize this thing. You need to go. So that which he was doing in the past, God brought it in the present and he benefited from it. So all his giving and building this, God brought it in the now so that he could benefit from it.
[00:43:09] Jared Roth: So good. So good. Yeah, it's so rich. The Psalms especially are so filled with the past. I will remember. I will remember. What's remembered is the positive God's face. I think they're paying it there. So in this last handful of minutes, we'll just talk about memories from the past for a minute and I'll wrap it up here.
I think I mentioned that Ann and I have been married for 46 years, and we've known each other for 56. Did you know that we do not recall most of these shared experiences the same way? Yeah. You hear Jared's story, you hear Ann's story, they're different stories. In fact, to make it more complicated, to hear Jared's story last year about something, and to hear Jared's story this year about something, it's going to sound different.
So what are memories and why is it so powerful to engage the present? When we go back there, which is what you're describing, scripture is full of it. I'm going to remember, but I'm going to remember certain stuff. That's what I'm going to, Paul says, I'm very aware of what happened to Philippi. You're not going to hear my story of victimhood about that.
I'm going to remember certain stuff about that. So what happens with our memory, when we make a memory, it is not housed in a place in our brain. It is disassembled and fragments of that experience are scattered all throughout the brain. When we recall something, we consciously pull forth tidbits of data until we are satisfied that we have enough to have reconstructed the memory.
But we have not reconstructed the memory, we have only pulled part of the data points. But it's enough to satisfy us. That's what happened. And we pull different data points at different times, which is why we tell different stories about what happened. And the people that we have shared these experiences with pull from their own data points and tell a different story about that, which is one reason when people are trying to reconcile around the facts of what happened, I rarely encourage them to go there because they cannot reconstruct a common past experience.
They can construct an attitude. of respect and candor and forgiveness, but they cannot reconstruct their memory.
We had different experiences and we would call it differently.
So what happens then when I go to the past and pull the data points? Here's the magic question. Would it be possible for me to, in advance, wear a lens that caused me to pull the positive data points?
Some people wear the lens of victim or bitter, and so when they recall the past, they pull in all the negative data points. And by the way, what they're telling you is true. That happened. Paul was beaten unjustly, thrown into jail. If we wear different lens We tell our brain, I want you to pull forth the mercies of God.
I want you to pull forth the favour of God. I want you to pull forth the blessing. I want you to pull forth the faithfulness of God. That's what David does in the Psalm. So what is the point of view that we choose in the present that helps us recall? You won't be surprised. It's gratitude. The preset of gratitude.
It tells our brain, go get stuff that is the positive stuff out of that mess and bring it forward.
[00:46:49] Kenneth (Bishop): One thing from experience I found, you used number one of Philippians, he used number four. But the Lord gave me when I first got into the, got called in Philippians chapter three, brother and sister, I count not myself to have apprehense. This is one thing I do, to get the thing which are behind me and reach forth to the thing which are before me. I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. Let us therefore as many as be perfectly thus minded, and if ye be otherwise minded, God shall reveal even this unto you.
Nevertheless, were to we have already obtained, let us walk by the same rules, let us mind the same thing.
[00:47:36] Jared Roth: Yeah, so good.
[00:47:37] Kenneth (Bishop): Brother and sister, we follow together. May a mark then which walks with us. You have us for an example.
[00:47:43] Jared Roth: So good.
[00:47:45] Kenneth (Bishop): I'll cut it short because it's time.
[00:47:47] Jared Roth: Yep, so good. So good. There we go. So Paul gives us an example in chapter one.
And he says, I want you to know that I am very purposeful in how I choose to frame the past, the present, and the future. In chapter two, Paul says, I want you to know that my model is Jesus. And He had this mind in Himself, and I'm asking you to have the same mind in yourself. What's the mind? It includes framing.
What point of view am I going to bring to this thing about my life and contribution? Chapter 3, Paul says, I have found an effective way to deal temporarily with my experience, past, present, and future. Chapter 4, metacognition. So when you're anxious, that's the limbic system triggering emotion. When you're anxious, pray and give thanks.
And God will, with His peace, guard your thoughts and your emotions in Christ Jesus.
[00:48:49] Kenneth (Bishop): Wow..
[00:48:51] Jared Roth: Think about these things. Get out of the stuff that triggered the anxiety to start with. Go to these things that are true, pure, kind, good. Paul says regarding the past: I thank God every time I remember you. Gratitude.
The present: what's happened to me has actually served to advance the Gospel, and I rejoice. savouring. And future: I eagerly expect and hope. Because I'm going to be around to bring you more joy, too. Amen..
[00:49:25] Pastor Addy: Wow.
[00:49:25] George La Du: Really good. Really good.
[00:49:28] Nilaksha Fernando: No one has ever gotten applause.
[00:49:30] Carl Nicolson: We'll turn the applause up.
[00:49:32] Angela Nicolson: We're sending you out on your journey.
I wanted to also just say one thought I had, which is at the beginning you said that the frame is a stable structure. for what is inside of that. And I think that's a really important point too, because not only can that hold you up, but it can also hold you back if the stable structure of a negative thought process is really just binding you.
And I've learned a lot through trying to walk through really hard things with a lot of other people. And sometimes the people who are working through some really hard things that are legitimately grievous But they just can't seem to, break the frame of that structure. And so I just want to encourage us to make sure that we break the frames and build new frames so that we can, enter into what you're talking about. This is so inspiring. Thank you so much.
[00:50:30] Jared Roth: Beautiful.
[00:50:31] Pastor Addy: Thank you, Father. Good job.
[00:50:34] George La Du: The Dr. Carolyn Lee goes into great detail on the distinction between the brain and the mind. As she works with many people with addictions, and how we can change the neural pathways, and by what we're thinking, by giving thanks, by gratitude, is to change the brain.
Instead of reacting in a negative way, that by re training the mind and what I think on. I can develop new neural pathways. So my automatic response isn't negative anymore, but a positive response. And what you're talking about, bringing it into the present. How do I want now the present to be better?
And she's done some amazing work and actually she's got two books that I've been through that The first one is on _Switch On Your Brain_, and then there's a follow up that's really good, and how to do what she's talking about.
[00:51:41] Jared Roth: I want to mention her name again.
[00:51:42] George La Du: Carolyn Leaf, L E A F. Yeah, so she's a neuroscientist. Yeah.
[00:51:49] Jared Roth: And a Christ follower.
[00:51:50] George La Du: Yes.
[00:51:51] Jared Roth: Which is a fairly unusual combination. So it ends up having, for us, we don't have to interpret her. Most of the sources need some interpretation, right? We bring our own faith lenses to their story and interpretation.
[00:52:05] George La Du: And so she's, she and her whole team for 25 years, they've been gathering data and information to be able to show that what she's putting out there is a reality.
It actually works. And so, people with certain mindsets, it can't, it doesn't matter that you've been an addict for 20 years or whatever. We, with this understanding, this practice, we can develop different neural pathways so far, which is amazing.
[00:52:37] Jared Roth: My Mennonite heritage was a pious pathway, and metacognition included denial.
And denial never works, because whatever you're denying will pop out on its own in unhelpful ways. But in our model The emotion was wrong. And so you should not feel angry. You should not feel disappointed. If you really are filled with the Spirit and love Jesus, that He's bigger than all of that.
And so it was denial of how God created us, in terms of as emotional beings, and the huge benefit of having negative thoughts. Negative thoughts aren't bad. Negative thoughts might keep you alive. If I don't move, I will get hit by the truck. That is a negative thought. So thank God for that. It's the holistic experience of who we are, but then moving into what we choose to do with the mind, which isn't a function of the brain.
It's related, but you're absolutely right. The limbic system, the first two are all about the brain. The stem, brain stem, and the limbic system are all about the brain. It's all subconscious work. It's happening for you. But the mind is what we do with it in the prefrontal cortex. And how we take this data and stimuli, and we shape it in ways with our mind.
Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus. He didn't say let this brain be in you. But get it up in the mind. Let this mind be in you. It's a point of view. It's a path of a servant. Thank you.
[00:54:04] George La Du: Very good. Thank you. Thank you, Jerod.
[00:54:09] Jared Roth: I'm going to fix this wall.
[00:54:14] George La Du: Amen. Thank you everybody online, Khang and Phillip.
Good to see you, brother.
[00:54:21] Khang Tran: Good to see you guys. And I just want to show
[00:54:24] Angela Nicolson: Oh, yeah. Nice. He's got _From Strength to Strength_ there, Jared.
[00:54:29] Jared Roth: Oh, awesome. Okay. Yeah. Oh, you're too young to read that. You're supposed to be at least 45.
[00:54:38] Khang Tran: I need to rewatch this recording again today because I feel... like I thank you so much for your time.
[00:54:47] George La Du: Is that what it says on the foreword of that book? You must be at least 45.
[00:54:51] Jared Roth: I actually gave it to a 34 year old friend and I said, you're way too young, but you think about this kind of stuff. Maybe you'll find some benefit for the future. And he read it and he texted me and he said, oh, man, spot on right now.
[00:55:09] George La Du: So Father, as we go out from here today, let us be of the same mind as Christ Jesus, that we would, Lord God prove what is good. Thank You for Jared. Thank You for this word and help us to practice in Jesus' name, amen.
[00:55:26] Ken Eagon: Amen.
[00:55:26] George La Du: Thank you all.
[00:55:28] Kenneth (Bishop): Beautiful
[00:55:28] Carl Nicolson: Au revoir!
[00:55:30] Khang Tran: Au revoir!