According to Dr. Caroline Leaf, communication pathologist, toxic thoughts are like poison or abscesses … they have that effect in the brain.

Captured From: LifeToday.org

While holding an actual photo of the brain, Dr. Leaf, pointed out a very toxic memory. It was a dark black one that looked like a tree with many, many branches. She explained that toxic memories have all the wrong chemicals and they cause a toxic reaction in the body.

Dr. Leaf, from Johannesburg, South Africa, has researched the human brain since 1981, and she spoke on Life Today recently about controlling our thought life and eradicating toxic thoughts. She says there are two points where we can actually control how a thought affects our life.

The first and most advantageous point of control is when the thought is initially introduced to us. It’s at that point that we can make a decision to accept or reject the information. It was also interesting to me to hear Dr. Leaf explain how this process of free will was built right in to us through genetic code by the Creator Himself.

There is a point in your brain called the “free will” and it is a genetic structure, there is genetic code. You can use that free will to accept or reject that incoming information. So if you are controlling your thought life, you don’t have to just receive all of this input that is coming in from the outside world, from the media, from external and also from your internal world; we’ve got a lot of existing toxic memories in our head, everything from birth to death is stored in your brain. So you’re going to have information coming from the outside, information from the inside and it all meets at this point of the free will in the brain. You can make a decision at that point to accept or reject that information. If you decide this is not good for me and you actually analyze that thought and say, this is not good for me, this is not healthy. You can reject that thought and it goes out and becomes heat energy. It actually becomes hot air and it doesn’t become part of you. But if you choose to think about it, if you choose to meditate on that, if you choose to ask, answer, discuss, analyze to give meaning, you push it into these memory trees of the mind, into the memory circuits and once they’re there, they are there for good. Once they’ve moved into what the neuro-scientists call the magic trees of the mind, once they’re there, they’re there for good, you can’t get rid of them. Then you’ve got to rebuild, that’s the renewing of the mind. Much more difficult to rebuild than it is to reject.
~ Dr. Caroline Leaf

The second point of control is after the thought has already been accepted. Dr. Leaf says that if thoughts slip through into our brain and become toxic, we need to start the rebuilding process. What it boils down to is a renewing of the mind process just like the Word of God says. We must think on things that are good, pure, of good report. God didn’t say that for no reason! As I observed in a recent post, How Healthy Meditation Can Make Us Successful, God’s Word teaches us that proper meditation will cause us to prosper and succeed, and it will add joy to our life.

Dr. Leaf, author of Who Switched off My Brain?: Controlling Toxic Thoughts and Emotions, says that the medical community and the scientific community (neuro-scientists and neuro-researchers) agree. They have proven that if we think healthy, positive, good thoughts, we release chemicals in our brain that actually go down to those negative toxic memories and start literally helping to dissolve them and actually help change the structure of that memory so that we can grow a new healthy memory over the old toxic one.

I was fascinated by the interview with Dr. Leaf and the way science proves God’s Word to be true. It was a two part interview with James and Betty Robinson, and you can view it, listen to it, or read it by following these links:

Keeping it real,

Fellowship, or friendship, with God will always include service. It doesn’t have to be back-braking, joint-aching work. In fact, it may not feel like work at all!

Recently, a friend said to me, “You smell great! What are you wearing?” I told her the name of the scent and said, “It’s funny, I thought it smelled great when I put it on, but I don’t smell it at all now.” She explained that, if I don’t notice the scent of the perfume I’m wearing, that means it is the right scent for me. Likewise, when we are working at a task that is right for us, we don’t feel so worked-up about it, even if it includes hard labor. In fact, it might even be a stress reliever because it fits us so comfortably. Whatever our task, we are to be passionate about it by serving the Lord enthusiastically (see Romans 12:11 and 1 Corinthians 15:58).

In her book, Having a Mary Heart in a Martha World, Joanna Weaver tells the story of a man who has been given the task of taking a stone to the top of a mountain. The man was whistling happily as he traveled along, pushing his cart with the stone inside. Another man noticed him as he traveled up the mountain and asked if he might add his stone to the cart - since he was already going that way. The first man agreed and off he went whistling happily along as he traveled up the mountain. A third man noticed him as he traveled along and asked if he might also add his stone to the cart - since he was already going that way. The first man agreed and off he went whistling happily along as he traveled up the mountain. This happened to the man several more times as he made his journey. Each time the cart became heavier and more difficult to push. The man was no longer whistling as he traveled; he was toiling to get the heavy load to the top. Eventually, the man ran out of energy and stopped to pray. He said, “Lord, I can’t do this! Why did you give me such a hard task?” God replied, “I only gave you the first stone, you took it upon yourself to add the rest.”

God’s Word tells us that He created us with specific tasks in mind (see Romans 2:10). If you find that you are having trouble completing your tasks, perhaps you should check your cart to see if there are some stones that don’t belong. Often, our very best efforts result in failure because we have tried to accomplish something God never intended for us to do.

Keeping it real,

I took two years of Spanish in high school, so when I went to college they put me in an advanced Spanish course. I was overwhelmed because they spoke nothing but Spanish in class, and I quickly realized that I needed to buy an English to Spanish translation book so I could understand what they were saying … AND so I would know how to say something that made sense to them!

God’s Word is like that translation book. It is the primary means we have for learning God’s ‘language.’ When we aren’t familiar with His Word, a lot of what we speak to Him in prayer isn’t much more than childlike gibberish, and it has the potential to be contrary to His Word, making it a totally ineffective prayer. If we don’t know Him well enough to speak His language, why should we be surprised when we don’t feel like He is hearing our prayers?

What do I mean by speaking God’s language? I’m talking about knowing God well enough to know what kind of prayers He will answer … AND what kind He won’t! Sometimes when I’m talking with a friend, they struggle to explain something they’ve said because it came out all wrong. I quickly say to them, “It’s ok, I speak fluent [insert name here]!” In other words, I’m telling them that I didn’t take it wrong because I KNOW them, and I know their heart toward me. When you know someone well, you don’t misunderstand them as often.

The following parable of Jesus shows how scary it can be when you don’t know God well, and you pray without speaking His language:

“Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven. Many will say to Me in that day, ‘Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?’ And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!’ (Matthew 7:21-23 NKJV)

Isn’t this a scary thought? They were praying to the Lord, and they saw positive results after those prayers, so they assumed that they had a right relationship with the Lord, and that they were praying according to God’s will … but look what happened! At the judgment, they were told that their prayers had never been heard, AND they were cast out of the Kingdom of Heaven. What a HORRIBLE thing!

What Went Wrong?

It wasn’t that God wasn’t able to ‘hear’ them, but that He refused ‘listen’ to them … because they did not obey His Word. They lost their opportunity to spend eternity in Heaven, because without knowing God’s Word, their lives were amiss, and they assumed they were right with God … but they weren’t.

Thankfully, Jesus immediately comforted His concerned listeners by telling them how to prevent this from happening in their own lives, and this is exactly how we can prevent it from happening in our lives, as well.

“Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock. (Matthew 7:24-25 NIV)

God’s Word is that rock! It is so very important that we read God’s Word and become familiar with it, so that we can view life through the lens of truth.

Scripture records 131 commands of Jesus, and perhaps the most important one was this … “IF you love me, you will keep my word.” Why would that command be so important? Because God’s Word gives us the power to KNOW God, to recognize His voice, and pray powerfully effective prayers.

How to Read the Bible and Understand it Better

I wrote a post last year titled How to Read the Bible and Understand it Better. In that post, I tell about the best tool I’ve come across for helping me read and understand God’s Word. I invite you to jump over and read it if you are looking for a way to get more out of your Bible study time.

Keeping it real,