There’s this cool thing that our brains can do—they can adapt.
When we’ve been through something hard for our bodies, some kind of sickness or physical trauma, they develop ways of operating and coping that protect us and help us to heal.
But sometimes, after our bodies have healed, our brains can continue the habits they developed in sickness. Our bodies might be well, but our brains need to be told. They need a minute to move on from the old story of sickness and catch up to the new story of wellness.
I’ve experienced this.
And I’ve noticed this same sort of thing happening in other ways, too.
In my own life, and as we at Project Nexus have worked with various leaders in our Practitioners’ Collective, I’ve seen people’s propensity to become attached to old stories; we can live like we are still existing within old circumstances even after they’ve gone. Even after God has changed our circumstances, our mission, or even US.
We all experience trauma or difficulties that imprint upon us. That create expectations within us or habitual patterns of behaviour and thought that exercise themselves regardless of whether the situation necessarily calls for it or not.
But the thing is, stories, communities, cultures, and we as individual people are always evolving, which is particularly pertinent if your heart is in and driven by innovation.
And the other thing is that “love always hopes” (1 Cor. 13:7).
It is in the nature of love, and, therefore, God Himself, to look around with eyes of hope and positive expectation. Sometimes, this is taken from us when we live in old stories.
We must give ourselves, the people around us, and the stories we carry permission to evolve and grow. If we don’t, we are in danger of rendering ourselves blind, stuck, and irrelevant—limited by previous experiences, both good and bad. Certainly, we will not have the ability to be present in the new thing that God is doing in, around, and through us. And, in case you need to be reminded, you can count on Him to be doing new things, beyond the bounds of what you ask for or imagine (Is. 43:18; Eph. 3:20).
In order to honor and live in the new, we sometimes need to find a resting place for the old. We sometimes need to remind ourselves that the old has gone, and the new has come (2 Cor. 5:17). And we sometimes need to step outside of old stories in order to step into new ones.
I think about the cloud above the tabernacle that would settle or lift, signalling to the Israelites in Exodus when it was time to stay in one place and when it was time to move on to the next one…
Look around you.
Has the cloud lifted?
It might be time to pack up your tent and follow.
