My coworker is one of the most passionate people I know. I love to listen to her talk. She gets so excited about things and is so positive. She believes. One thing she’s been excited about lately is drawing. She has been reading a book called “Drawing from the Right Side of the Brain”, and as she tells it, one day she was drawing stick figures, and the next, she had drawn a beautiful sketch of a horse and rider. The key, she explained, was to begin by turning the picture of the horse upside-down, so that the left side of the brain (which, from what I understand, likes to take over and tell the right side to sit down and shut up and let it do all the work) backs off and lets you simply draw what you see, instead of what you think you see. So, instead of your brain recognizing the image of a horse, it’s just seeing the lines that make up a horse.
I think we have a spiritual “left brain” and “right brain” too. The spiritual left brain says things like “You already know everything in the Bible…this is boring,” or, “God doesn’t really hear you when you pray.” It likes to think about the circumstances you’re in right now, your worries or excitement, or what you’re going to wear tomorrow. Anything but being still and waiting for Jesus to speak to your heart. It can easily take over the spiritual “right brain,” squelching it until it’s nothing more than a feeble whisper.
That’s why God turns the picture of life upside down. He says “See, this the line I want you to follow. Ignore what you think you know- what your fleshly nature is telling you to think. Follow the path I have sketched out for you. Trace over the lines of My example with your life. Only then will your childish scribblings turn into the echoes of a masterpiece.”
Just like the right side of our physical brain, the right side of our spiritual mindset needs to be exercised too. Give yourself enough time to pray so that your spiritual “left side” quiets down and backs off, and lets you hear the whispers of the Messiah teaching your heart.
It takes discipline and practice to train your spiritual right brain, your heart, to be attuned to the whispers of the Holy Spirit. It takes faith to see what God wants us to see in the everyday rumble of life.
With this mindset, we can view life with the excitement of my coworker. She said “I’m so excited about the next 30 years – I have an entire half of my brain to explore!” Likewise, we have an entire life to explore in Christ. So tell your spiritual left brain to back off. Seat yourself at the Master’s feet. Be still. Listen.
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This is excellent, Diana! Very, very well written and so true.
Thank you Mrs. T.!