Why You Absent-Mindedly Drive to Wal-Mart
I was especially tired when I hopped into my car. Well, “hopped” is a bit of an overstatement. Maybe “softly rolled” would be the better word choice. My destination was to be the local GameStop to pick up a gift card for a graduating senior. I ended up in the Wal-Mart parking lot…confused. Why am I here?
GameStop and Wal-Mart are pretty close in our town. What happened was that I had told my brain to drive towards Wal-Mart. In its tired state it simply followed that groove it has followed so many times. The brain is incredibly lazy. “I’ve got you to Wal-Mart what more do you want,” my brain mockingly said to me.
Donald Hebb, the father of neuropsychology once said that “cells that fire together, wire together”. When we do something over and over again it creates neural pathways in our brain. It’s been explained this way:
Pathways in the brain are made by connections between neurons (nerve cells). When a behavior is performed, the connections between these cells change with the frequency of the behavior performed. These neural pathways are like grooves in the road maps of our brain. The more frequently we travel the road, the stronger and more second nature the behavior. You can practice traveling down “new roads” or neural pathways by performing a new behavior with frequent repetition, connecting new beliefs to support the new behavior, as well as visualizing a positive outcome resulting from these new behaviors.[1]
They are only saying what Proverbs 3:9 said so many years ago. If we attend to the ways of wisdom we will create a path for righteousness, justice, and equity. The word there for path is connected to the Hebrew words for “cart” and “to roll”. It gives us the picture of a literal track made by a wagon wheel. If you use the same route over and over again then it creates a much easier walk. And you’ll start naturally following that path. There is a reason that most of us drive on the road and not in the median. We take the path of least resistance.
Building these mental pathways is not optional. We are always creating habits. If we are attentive to wisdom, seeking it like silver, then we can be certain that our pathways will be marked by righteousness, justice, and equity. In other words, our life will coincide with the way God has made the world. Or we will carve out for ourselves the crooked pathways (2:15). We reap what we sow. Cornelius Plantinga said it this way:
A fuller statement of the great law of returns would therefore go something like this: sow a thought, and reap a deed; sow a deed, and reap another deed; sow some deeds, and reap a habit; sow some habits, and reap a character; sow a character, and reap two thoughts. The new thoughts then pursue careers of their own. (Plantinga, Not the Way It’s Supposed to Be, 70)
The good news is that we’re not stuck in a rut. We can change. We can form new habits. We can step off the crooked path and pursue the way of wisdom—the way of Jesus. That isn’t easy. In fact, the Scriptures would argue that it takes a heart change. We will not jump out of those old ruts of ungodliness apart from God’s grace. But God truly does rescue us and set us on a new pathway.
But those old grooves are hard not to fall back into. I was fixing an old chair this past weekend. Many of the screws had rotted and so I had to replace them with new screws. Some of the screw holes had gotten so big or so warped that we needed to create a new hole. But I found that if I got too close to the old one, the screw would slip right back into that old hole. I needed to close that one up and do something entirely different. Holiness is the same way. We aren’t yet fully redeemed. And in such a state we have a tendency to drift right back into those old paths. That is why we must be intentional about pursuing wisdom daily.
---
How does this relate to the gospel? Where does this fit into the gospel story of creation, fall, redemption, and glory?
C: We only knew of one path, the path of justice, equity, and righteousness
F: Another crooked way was introduced. Humanity turned from the way of righteousness and as such we now find ourselves making deep ruts in the path of rebellion. We’re habitual sinners.
R: Jesus rescues us from ourselves. He restores our neural pathways, our habits, and our way of being. He makes us entirely new people.
G: We will be fully restored and our pathway will only be the way of Jesus.
There is another point to be made here as well. Because the way of Jesus is now lived out in a fallen world it goes against the grain. You have to fight not to get into the rut of rebellion. And when you do—it’s noticed. And it’s often persecuted. We don’t like things that are different, it creates alarm. Therefore, the path of Jesus is marked as a road of suffering in our twisted world. But it’s the only path of righteousness, justice, and equity.
[1] https://maximus.com/the-brain-our-habits