By 
To be created in the image of God is no small matter. How I wish that our minds could comprehend the enormity of it all; but since we use maybe 15% of our brains at any given moment, how will we ever know?
Consider the imagery those with near death experiences recount, of sights and sounds more real than life itself, of incredible beauty and light, of hyper-vivid intensity of color, of chords and octaves beyond. Who knows what God has in store for us in heaven. Makes me wonder about Eden. Was it, in its perfection, abounding in hue and tint, rhythm and beat? I have much to look forward to. I know that my color palette is not as intense as that of my artist daughter who sees a spectrum invisible to me. And I am tone deaf—the nuances of a musical interlude are lost to me, then too the cacophony.
I read in the May 2015 Smithsonian magazine of the “Mind Meld” research being done between computer and brain. Legitimate headway has been made in brain stimulation for stroke and traumatic brain injury. Future hope predicts that ALS patients could trigger computer processes with focused brain waves through EEG sensors in a ball cap. Think of the implication for Stephen Hawking, theoretical physicist.
What if you could communicate person-to-person without words? Think of police during a covert operation. Think of robbers, stealthily casing the joint. Think of medical students downloading a unique surgical technique from the brain of a world-renowned surgeon. What if your spouse knew your thoughts? Not such a good idea? Better we stick with language for that? You can see clearly that ethical implications abound.
Desperately man looks for ways to improve his mind. Desperately he invokes technology. Desperately he wants to play God. But God has said, “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts higher than your thoughts” (Isaiah 55:9, NIV). You, man, will not outdo me, as hard as you may try.
Oh yes, our level of intelligence is inventive, because God created us that way. We now have the encyclopedic answers at our fingertips, instead of in print in those cumbersome volumes of Britannica.
But as God said to Job, “Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation? Tell me, if you understand. Who marked out its dimensions? Surely you know. Who stretched a measuring line across it? On what were its footings set, or who laid its cornerstone—while the morning stars sang together and all the angels shouted for joy? 36.Who endowed the heart with wisdom or gave understanding to the mind?” (Job 38:4-7,36, NIV).
I am soundly put in my place as I contemplate the mind of God—humbled, “For who has known the mind of the Lord that he may instruct him?” (1 Corinthians 2:16a, NIV); yet graciously elevated: But we have the mind of Christ (2:16b). The mind of Christ! All that wisdom has been down-loaded into my mind.
To boot, as Jesus promised, God provided the perfect access point for understanding: “The Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and remind you of everything I have said to you” (John 14:26, NIV). Jesus had taught those disciples great and wonderful things from the moment they followed; but so much they did not get, framed in pre-resurrection circumstances. After He’d risen, you can just hear all their Aha! moments—so that’s what He meant!
Jesus told them: “When he, the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is to come” (John 16:13, NIV). The Spirit is ready, willing, and able to translate all things into truth for me.
And when I am in distress, in need of knowing the will of God, the Spirit jumps in the fray: In the same way, the Spirit helps us in all our weaknesses. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express. And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints in accordance with God’s will (Romans 8:26-27, NIV).
Foundational to truth is none other than Truth itself, Jesus: “I am…the truth” (John 14:6, NIV). John dubs Him “the Word” (John 1:1). Constant renewing of my mind in the truth of the Word is critical to my knowing and doing the will of God, especially in today’s cultural climate: Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will (Romans 12:2, NIV).
As Paul instructed Timothy, I do my best: to present (myself) to God as one approved, a workman who does not need to be ashamedand who correctly handles the word of truth (2 Timothy 2:15, NIV). Hermeneutics, the womenary topic this winter, teaches how to do just that, to correctly handle the word of truth. As I think of the basic principles of Bible study, these words come to mind: context, content, connect, in order to convey truth. Who is the author writing to? What was he really saying to those folks? How does it apply to me? How can I pass it on?
Knowledge, understanding, wisdom, revelation—all are mine. And so I ask myself, why in the world is my mind stuck at 15%?
Nancy Paul
Nancy Paul is Canadian born and bred but happily settled in Texas. She is married, mother of two, and grandmother of three busy boys. A long time Womenary student, she loves to read, is a lover of God's word and a wannabe writer. Nancy is a regular contributor to encouraging.com, a collection of blog articles regularly published by the women of Green Acres Baptist Church of Tyler. As well, she is the women's Bible study coordinator at GABC. 
