24: Who Are You Wired to Be? – Creation & Covenant Identity

[00:00] Stephanie: Season 3, episode 24. Today we are wrapping up our Brain Science and Identity little series and looking forward to this conversation.

Hello, Father.

[00:12] Marcus: Hello, Daughter.

[00:13] Stephanie: Happy Easter Monday. He is risen!

[00:16] Marcus: He is risen indeed!

[00:19] Stephanie: It’s very good. It’s very good to celebrate. Without the resurrection, our faith is in vain.

[00:24] Marcus: That’s true. Yeah. Our faith is futile.

[00:28] Stephanie: Yep.

[00:29] Marcus: So, thank God for the resurrection and the promise that we will join him in that resurrection. Amen.

[00:35] Stephanie: And happy conversation. We have been talking brain science the last two weeks, and I do encourage you, if you missed those conversations, pause this one and go listen to them. I think it would be helpful and I enjoyed them. Hopefully you will too.

So that’s my encouragement there for context. So far, we have been setting up this fast-track identity and also looking at mirror neurons and how they affect our identity.

Both of these things are things that we don’t really have a lot of control of on the surface. The fast track is happening before our conscious thought, and mirror neurons – we can’t see ourselves, we are seeing other people seeing ourselves.

And so I guess my opening question here is, this all feels very out of our control. How do we have agency in our identity formation?

In that first episode that we were talking about this, we talked about neuroscience and theology, or creation identity and covenant identity. So we’re going to kind of pull back into that and look at how we have agency in our creation and our covenant identities.

[02:00] Marcus: That’s a good point. So let me just start by saying that we aren’t technically creating our identity. I think of Michelangelo and the David statue…

[02:15] Stephanie: I love this code. I identify with it strongly.

[02:17] Marcus: …chipping away everything. He goes, “How did you make that?” He said, “I just chipped away everything that didn’t look like David.” And I think that that’s partly what we’re doing.

God has given us an identity, and we’re trying to discover that identity and live our lives as in harmony with that identity as possible, with the conviction that that’s the way we’re designed to live, so things will flow more naturally and smoothly if we can accomplish that.

So what can I do to be Michelangelo? What can I do to chip away those things and instill those things that are going to help me be myself? So if you look on the creation side of it, there’s a couple of things.

[03:02] Stephanie: Will you quickly redefine, in a sentence or two? Creation versus covenant identity.

[03:07] Marcus: Yeah. Creation has to do with who God created me uniquely to be, both as somebody who is in the image of God and somebody who has unique heart characteristics. That God looks at me and what my inner person is.

I heard an interesting description of the image of God I’ll throw out there because I thought it was interesting. They said to be made in the image of God was kind of like a hand in a glove. And the idea is that I am in the glove, as in the image of a hand.

And if you take off the glove and there’s no hand in it, the glove has no purpose. It’s just sitting here. But the glove has to be filled with the hand and then it has purpose. In the same way, when God fills my life, unless God is filling my life, I’m not going to have purpose.

I’m not going to fulfill my purpose in life. And purpose and identity are very closely related, because who God wired me to be, who he made me to be has got a lot to do with his calling on my life and what he’s put me here to do.

So identity from the creation side. And then the covenant side, given that it’s Easter and we just had Good Friday, is that Jesus said this is the new covenant in my blood. And that new covenant gives us the elements of PACT that we talk about various times:

I’m Pardoned, I’m Adopted, I’m a Citizen, and I have a new Title – I’m a saint. And so we’re going to look at some ways that we can dive into both of those areas to build out, strengthen our sense of identity just a little bit. It’s not much.

[04:51] Stephanie: I’m going to use that opportunity to say if you would like to slow this way down and go through it at your own pace, I highly recommend the identity course. You can go through PACT, what he just sped off there. You can go through that at your own pace.

[05:07] Marcus: Yes, we have about six sessions walking through what it was in six seconds. Yeah. Goodness gracious.

[05:13] Stephanie: All right, so let’s dig into that. Starting with Creation Identity.

[05:20] Marcus: Yes. One of our partner ministries is Thrive Today with Chris and Jen Coursey. And one of the things that they do that I really like is they talk about heart values, and that is, who has God wired you to be?

One of the ways I’ve heard them talk about this is, let’s say that you and I see somebody in distress and we both want to help them because there’s something inside of us that wants to help.

But how we would want to help them might look very different because we’re wired differently. And so you can have a variety of people who all want to help this person. One person is going to just want to give them a hug, right? One person’s going to want to become their friend.

One’s going to want to fix the problem. Well, what caused this problem? We’ve got to get them a house, we’ve got to get them whatever it is they need.

Another person’s going to say, I want this person to experience justice. I want to punish the person who did this. Put this person in here. Another person is, I want to change the whole system that is creating these kinds of problems.

It’s like everybody wants to help, but how I am wired and what my reaction is is going to have a say about how God wired me. Am I an organizational person, a justice person, a mercy person? You know, am I leading? Am I wired to be a leader?

I want to create a whole pathway for fixing these issues. I tend to be wired like a leader. And when I see something like this, it’s like I can give them a hug, but as soon as I’m done giving them a hug, I want to go see if I can’t put something together that’s going to address these problems on a more permanent basis.

[06:58] Stephanie: I would also throw mirror neurons into that mix. I think it’s totally true we are wired for different things. I’ve also seen in different circumstances, people respond in the ways that they’ve seen other people respond.

And so sometimes it doesn’t even cross their mind to respond in a certain way. Or they might, but they don’t know quite what it would look like to do that because they’re responding in the way that they’ve seen.

[07:20] Marcus: That’s true. As I mentioned before, I was watching this Korean show, because as I do, I watch K drama now and then, right? Too much.

So one of the things I noticed in the culture is a common response to sadness. People have seen each other deal with sadness a lot. There is almost this built in reaction of, we come and we know how we comfort people, we know how we go through hard things together.

That’s mirror neurons at work. I’ve seen my ancestors do this. I see my grandfather and my mother and all the other people do this. And this is how we walk through sadness together.

So there is a lot of what you’re saying, that we just learn culturally from, or subculturally, because of what our mirror neurons are seeing about how we respond to things.

But then when you take a step past that, right now, that’s where you’re going. Okay, what am I going to do next? How am I going to help?

[08:26] Stephanie: That’s why, I think, cultivate it or be intentional about it.

[08:28] Marcus: Right.

[08:29] Stephanie: Well, I was going to say, for me, I very much valued hospitality. And it has looked differently in different seasons and different stages of my life. But I just remember coming out of undergrad where I had been surrounded by people who were really good at hospitality.

And I came out, and I just all of a sudden realized, looking back over my life and being part of that community who was really intentional and good about hospitality, that all of a sudden I was approaching certain things like I would have from that group.

And it was still my heart value, but it was something that I recognized that aha moment of, I now know how to do something in this way.

[09:21] Marcus: Yeah, I see what this looks like.

[09:22] Stephanie: Yeah. Like this is a way it can look.

[09:25] Marcus: Well, I think that happens even in the way we do church, because we’re like, “I’ve only seen church done one way, and so my vision of what church should look like is that.”

And when I get exposed to another way, I’m like, “Oh, well, this actually resonates more with me than that one.” I think people go through seasons where it’s like that and what they do, they’re reflecting heart values of how God has wired them.

The other way that I see this is when I feel pain. What uniquely causes me pain will also reflect my values. And that is, it really hurts when people aren’t good to other people.

Or, in other words, I can see my justice coming out that way. I can see the leadership coming out that way. It’s like, why isn’t this organized better? Why isn’t this more transferable?

And those things that cause you discomfort or upsetness often reflect the fact that that is because that’s important to you, because God has wired you that way.

[10:25] Stephanie: Yeah, that’s a really good point. And we’ve already kind of alluded to that. I think one of the other things that you were going to mention was on finding your people in terms of agency.

[10:37] Marcus: It’s true. One of the things that we can do actively besides looking for those heart values inside, is begin actively noticing people who are good at things that I want to get good at, and finding ways to connect with them and building into your life.

Who do I need in my life? And it works kind of upstream and downstream in the sense of, I need people that I can be imitating, but I also need people I can be building into.

I’ll give you an example. When it came to Hebrew, I…

[11:12] Stephanie: I was just going to go there for you and for me.

[11:14] Marcus: Yeah, right, because it’s such an obvious example. That is, I really struggled to learn Hebrew. And then I got asked to teach it. By the time I was done teaching it, I’m like, “Oh, I think I get this now.”

In that same way, sometimes I’m imitating other people, I’m learning from people upstream. But sometimes it’s in helping the people who are trying to learn this skill also, and that (when) I’m helping them with that skill that it really comes alive for me. And so it’s important for us to have both of those.

[11:45] Stephanie: Yes, I have found routinely, if I’m in a position where I need to teach something, I own it at a whole new level. I remember making a note for myself when I went into seminary. I got a little overwhelmed. I didn’t quite hold to this note, but it was a nice idea, which was to treat every class like I’m going to turn around and reteach that class.

[12:06] Marcus: Right.

[12:07] Stephanie: I wanted to take note. I wanted to process my notes and do things in such a way, because I knew from experience I’m a good student. But there’s a difference between learning something and then turning it around and helping somebody with it.

[12:21] Marcus: Right.

[12:22] Stephanie: And you just learn it at a whole new level.

[12:25] Marcus: And so what I find is some people struggle with finding upstream people, and some people struggle with the downstream. There are some people who are only ever investing in people downstream, and they burn out because they have nobody upstream.

And there are other people who are only investing in people upstream because they’re so aware of their need and they don’t understand that they already have something of value to offer to people.

And so that’s the other thing that I can do to be intentional about this is building out my group, my people, in an upstream and downstream way. Those are two of many suggestions that could be made on how we focus on the creation part of this.

[13:03] Stephanie: And I will also, just because I alluded to it right then with my approach to my seminary, don’t bite off too much more than you can sit through. Pray with God, talk to people who know you and try to figure out your heart values.

Go through the Thrive Today training, but don’t try to tackle every single thing at once. Like say, “Okay, God, what is the priority right now? What’s the next step? Ok, what’s the next step? Okay, now what’s the next step?”

Because it’s easy to think, “No, I need to change all these things right now,” or, “I need to level up in all these things right now.” And then you just fizzle out and feel hopeless.

[13:49] Marcus: I’m planning to have my life completely better by Friday.

[13:53] Stephanie: Oh, this Friday?

[13:54] Marcus: Yeah. You think that might be too big?

[13:58] Stephanie: I would bump it to at least next Friday.

[14:00] Marcus: All right.

[14:00] Stephanie: Yeah. All right. Well, anything else on the creation side of things right now?

[14:06] Marcus: No, let’s move over to the other side. So on the covenant side of it, we’re really into truth things like, what is true about me? What is true because of my relationship with God? What has become true of me?

There are two things here. One is I need to kind of build what you could think of as a tower of truth by just reaffirming things that God has said are true of me in Christ.

And that is, that I have become the righteousness of Christ. I have been adopted into the family. I am a citizen of heaven. What is true about me? I need to remind myself of those truths on a regular basis and prayerfully contemplate the implication of those things for the way that I live my life.

I think the other part of that is dealing with the lies that we have learned about ourselves and about our identity through that common wound, lie, vow, stronghold, pattern that we often teach.

In my life, I find that God has said, “I delight in you,” but you feel like no one could possibly delight in me. Well, that means there’s probably a wound underneath there that is teaching you a lie that is robbing you of the ability to feel like anybody could delight in you.

And so that’s where we go through something like the REAL prayer process of meeting with a prayer minister, or, in our own journaling, connecting with God. Like, “What lie is sabotaging my ability to feel your delight in me?”

And that can actually have a dual benefit, because it not only deals with the truth part of it, but it enhances our attachment to Christ, because when we feel like he cares about our woundedness, and he has now spoken into that woundedness, then we get both truth and attachment in that process.

And so whether it’s Immanuel prayer, whether it’s REAL prayer, whether it’s some other process, I think there’s a lot to be said there for reclaiming our true identity.

[16:12] Stephanie: Well, and if you’re exposing the lies, the whole point of the lie is that it feels true. There are times when you’re like, “I know this is a lie, but it still feels true.” But there are other times you don’t know it’s a lie. You think it’s the truth.

And so when you expose that lie or those lies, you’re also exposing the enemy’s work in your life, which is also helpful in, one, dealing with that, and also, preventing, or trying to keep on guard, so that the enemy can’t keep messing with you in those ways.

And sometimes God lets us see what the enemy is up to, not because the enemy is powerful or is overwhelming God, but because it’s instructive to see, “Hey, this is what the enemy is up to, and here’s what I can do about it.”

[17:03] Marcus: Exactly.

[17.04] Stephanie: Huzzah!

[17:05] Marcus: Haven’t heard that word in a while. That’s good.

[17:09] Stephanie: I was trying to train myself out of it because I realized I was saying it so much everybody is saying it back to me. I’m sorry. I say this word a lot, apparently.

[17:18] Marcus: It’s a cute word. It’s okay.

[17:19] Stephanie: It’s okay. All right, now I’ve derailed us. I’m tempted to have you linger, unpack a little bit since we’ve brought it up a couple times. But I’m also aware of timing. Let’s talk a little bit more about this tower of truth.

[17:43] Marcus: Sure. So the idea from a spiritual warfare perspective, a stronghold is always going to be anchored in a lie that we believe. When you think about the one time in the Bible stronghold is used negatively is in 2 Corinthians 10:4 & 5.

All of the phrases in those verses are about the mind and about taking thoughts captive. And so the idea is that a stronghold is always anchored in lies that we’re believing, ways that the devil is attacking our thought life.

So tearing down a stronghold is part one, and then building up a tower of truth is part two. The building up the tower of truth is, “Okay, I’ve gotten rid of this lie. I don’t believe this lie anymore. But what is the truth I need to really build as a foundation for my life?”

Those truths are things about God’s delight in me, I’m at peace with God.  I’m not at war with him. He has never been angry at me because I’m in Christ. He doesn’t live disappointed with me. He will correct me.

I can tell the difference between a Holy Spirit thought and a demon thought because the Holy Spirit thoughts are corrective, demon thoughts are condemning.

Having that tower of truth that I build is about me getting my thoughts lined up with this on a regular basis so I just remind myself of the truth. And that’s an important part of what we can do to reinforce our core identity.

[19:29] Stephanie: I’ve had several people mention this to me recently, which is, we talk a lot about WLVS, wounds, lies, vows, strongholds. But that’s like the counterfeit paradigm. What about the true paradigm, which would be wounds, but then truth instead of lies?

[19:49] Marcus: Right.

[19:50] Stephanie: That’s kind of what you’re also talking about is on one level, there’s getting rid of lies and building up the truth that should have been there.

And on the other hand, there’s getting the truth in the first place, which obviously we don’t always have control of, because we don’t always sense when we’re getting the lie. But the closer we can get on our walks and the more aware of the enemy’s tactics we can get. Yeah, go ahead.

[20:13] Marcus: Well, when I would pray with people through the wound, lie, vow, stronghold thing, we would pray in sessions together, once God showed them the truth, we’d go back and we’d ask them, “On a scale of 1 to 10, how true does this feel?”

And before, the lie felt very true, and afterwards it didn’t feel true anymore. And so we’d write down what was the truth that replaced it? And then we’re going to do things in scripture to reinforce that truth and give them ways to keep that truth in the forefront and understand why that’s true and really get anchored in it.

And so the two things can go together, right? The Holy Spirit shows me this is what the truth is. And then the scripture, I can go in there and take a deeper dive to really solidify that.

[20:58] Stephanie: And so just pulling it back together with our look at the neuroscience stuff that we’ve been talking about in all of this, the more you are internalizing truth, the more you are working on the conscious part of your narratives, there are things that will affect your worldview such that you’re not consciously thinking about it anymore, but you’re living out of it.

[21:27] Marcus: Right. You can build white matter or habits around your thought life, just like you can build habits in your relational practices or your character.

[21:37] Stephanie: Yeah. Like, once you have that worldview framework. If you’re having to relearn your worldview, if you’re having to reshape your worldview, you’re going to have to be consciously thinking about it a whole lot more.

And it is always good to be consciously thinking about stuff. I even just thought of, is it The Silver Chair? Oh, anyway, in Narnia, when Aslan is like, “Hey, here are the things that you need to memorize.”

[22:03] Marcus: And, yeah, don’t forget the five signs.

[22:06] Stephanie: Yeah, don’t forget these things. And then she stops muttering. She stops meditating on them.

[22:14] Marcus: Meditating on them.

[22:15] Stephanie: And things go wrong on the quest because she stops. It’s the same for us. It’s a great metaphor. It is like on one hand, your worldview, you’re not consciously thinking about it because it’s just the framework from what you do.

But we live in a world that is discipling us. So if we are not being intentional with our discipleship, if we are not being intentional about continuing to meditate on truth, then the other stuff we’re meditating on is going to get in there and affect through our mirror neurons.

[22:45] Marcus: Well, there’s a reason why in Psalm 1 we have both a warning not to hang out with people who are going to take us in a negative direction, and an exhortation to meditate on the Torah day and night.

And God holds up the importance of truth on a regular basis throughout Scripture.

[23:05] Stephanie: That’s all good. Well, I guess we need to wrap this up. We’ve been talking a lot this series about things that you can find more information on in the RARE Leadership books. So I encourage you to spend some time with those if you are wanting to dig deeper.

And hey, maybe you even want to practice teaching it to somebody and it’ll get even deeper. And then, of course, The Identity Course I think would be a great resource for you.

But, Father, would you give us a final wrap on the episode in the series?

[23:40] Marcus: Yes. We’ve been talking about sort of the neurotheology and Bible basis of our identity. I look at this and think what neurotheology has done for me is it’s changed the filter with which I read the Bible.

Because without it, I tended to have an attitude that just saw everything as a choice and everything as believe this and choose that, believe this and choose that. And now, what the neuroscience has done is it’s opened my eyes to the importance of attachment, to the importance of mirror neurons and those things.

And now I look at the Bible and I see it’s there too. But I was sort of blind to it before. And so what we’re doing is trying to bring the balance here that there is an attachment foundation to our identity. There’s also a truth foundation to our identity.

We need both of those things as we go forward. There are things that we can do to strengthen our identity through attachment, and there are things that we can do to strengthen our identity through meditation on truth.

[24:38] Stephanie: Thanks for joining us on the trail today. Did you like this episode? Would you like more people to see it? This is the part where I ask you to, like, comment, subscribe, share with a friend.

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Thanks again. We’ll see you back on the trail next week.