We grow where we are loved

​We grow where we are loved.

Did you know that isn't just a cool quote, but science? When we have a loving attachment with someone, the patterns and sequences of our brains actually start to match the person on the other side of that attachment. We literally start responding to life the same way that person does. Not because we want to be like them, but because we've become wired like them.

That process begins in childhood. It continues as we grow and mature across our lifespan. Our character doesn't develop and change by reading a book or joining a group or even going to church. It develops out of the loving attachments we have with other people.

You know, I always heard growing up and I still hear it said to young people today - "think before you act." Did you know, though, that we are actually wired to act before we think? For the most part, we are reactionary creatures.

I remember several years ago we had an earthquake here in Virginia. I'd never felt one before. I was sitting in the living room of our house. I was all alone. The house suddenly started shaking quite violently. The next thing I knew I was standing in our front yard staring back at the house.

I wasn't sitting in the living room thinking through my next steps. I reacted. Some time later I heard on the news I'd fled from an earthquake. (The house was fine by the way 😀).

We do that with much smaller things as well.

If someone cuts us off in traffic, we don't go through a thought process of, hmm, what is the appropriate response here.

When we lose someone close to us, we don't think through how we are supposed to grieve that - the emotions just take over.

In many ways we are automated creatures. We were created and wired to become automated. Because the reality is, if we're left to our own thinking, most of the time we'll come up with some really bad responses.

How we automatically respond to situations is our character. Our integrity. Those automatic responses will often look like the people we love deepest. It will be a reflection of the people who love us back.

If we stop and think about that a minute, I think most of us will believe that. I think we'll see that who we are has been largely shaped by who we think with, not who we think about.

I believe we've been wired that way to help us understand - see evidence of - why it's so important to think with God and not think about him. Believing in God is never going to change our automated responses to the world. We are not going to love an enemy because God said it's the right thing to do. We will love an enemy because we have a character in us that automatically responds to every person with love.

That's why it is so important to know that God is a God who lives inside us and not in some distant heaven. We have a God who is going through every second of every day saying "think with me on this a second" and not "why don't we talk about this later during your evening prayers."

We all know the story of Peter walking on water toward Jesus. When he was walking toward Jesus, when it was all about his connection to Him - when he was thinking with Jesus and not about Jesus - Peter was walking on water like it was a neighborhood sidewalk.

But then Peter started thinking about the wind and the waves and the storm. His steady walk became a sinking ship crying out for help. He started thinking about the storm and not thinking with Jesus during the storm.

Don't get me wrong, what we read and what we learn is definitely critical to the attachments we have. I read my bible to know Jesus better. Reading my bible, however, is never going to change me. My attachment to the Jesus I read about will.

If I want the best predictor of my future, it comes in looking at the people I have loving attachments to. My future is not going to be shaped by who and what I think about, it will be shaped by who I think with.