Believing is Seeing
Our beliefs are a way we
“see”. What we believe and then
see become our reality. Our
experts in this believing and seeing
business are those who know it because
they have experienced it.
For we novice believers,
advice from experts can be confusing. For example, those who are to us, experts, may talk
about the reality of God and His presence in their life. Yet we may look behind the same bushes,
or read the same lectionaries, or hear the same words, yet we may not see
anything out of the ordinary.
I’d like to address this issue
from the perspectives of perception, cognition and emotions, although research
in neuroscience generally supports and enhances the psychological approaches.
When we truly believe
something (when we expect it to be true), not only are we likely to see in our
mind what we may not have quite seen with our eyes, but our body will respond
in ways that suggest that indeed we did experience it in “real life”.
The easiest way to understand
a common experience for most of us might be to recall a time, perhaps during a
dark and stormy night in a location that was unfamiliar to us. If we hear an unexplainable, ominous noise
not too far from our position, we may believe/expect that
it is from a
threatening person or animal,
thus our body may shiver with
fear or anxiety. Clearly our mind,
our emotions, and our body are all responding to our momentary expectations,
believing that a dangerous situation lies just beyond our position (which,
hopefully in this example, turned out not to be true).
If we are walking in a
seemingly dried up grass field on a hot day in June, we may not see “beauty”,
but if we believe (expect) that
there is truly beauty
hidden in the grass if we just look for it,
we may take action and
look for it – and perhaps find a
small deeply-lobed plant with pink flowers that look like snowflakes growing in
the shade of a nearby plant. A
gift of nature that unless we expected to see it, we might not even have bothered to look for it.
If we believe (expect) that if
we express gratitude to a clerk at the local grocery store for his thoughtful
kindness toward us,
he will feel good about himself, and therefore we
will feel better about ourselves for
having “caused” the clerk’s increase in well-being,
having “caused” the clerk’s increase in well-being,
then we are more likely to take action and express
gratitude to the clerk, and to increase our own sense of well-being in the
process.
If we believe (expect) that as
we pray to God for healing from our disturbing illness,
that we will feel
better
it is more likely that indeed
we will feel better (God will have answered our prayers). To believe in
God is a perspective that transforms the ways available to give us healing and
energy -- it connects us to our own future. Furthermore, to celebrate in church with others that our
belief in God can bring positive outcomes, is a way that helps us all to
overcome life’s difficulties.
Incidentally, from psychological research we know that the
power of our beliefs (our expectations) to right the wrongs in our life, for
instance, is increased if we are feeling down, or confused, or upset, or
fearful. What a wonderful gift; at
the very time that we need help the most, our belief that God will answer our
prayers may benefit us the most.
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