Our Beautiful Minds

God truly pulled out all of the stops when he created the inner workings of the human mind. The brain is capable of some of the most amazing feats. I watched an interview of Dr. Ben Carson on the 700 Club a while ago and I was floored by some of the facts that he presented about the brain. Dr Ben Carson is a world renowned neurosurgeon who retired from Johns Hopkins Hospital. I wanted to share some of those fascinating facts with you all. I have no doubt that you will learn a few things in regards to these beautiful minds the Lord has so graciously bestowed upon each of us.

• The things you learn never leaves your brain- everything you have ever seen, everything you have ever heard, it’s all in there! Neuroscientists can actually use electrodes and stimulate the brain so you could quote word for word something you read in the third grade.

This one was a total shocker to me. I can’t even imagine quoting lines from “Charlotte's Web.” (Which by the way, I did actually read in third grade!) Can you imagine the capacity that our brains have if every single experience that has ever crossed our path, every word we have ever heard and every detail we have have ever placed before our eyes is all there, lined up like little soldiers neatly in a row? I can not even begin to grasp the vastness of this concept. Now knowing this, think about just how extremely important it is to monitor very closely what we put in front of our eyes and along our path of life, because those things are never coming out. Those things will stay locked away in the recesses of our minds until the day we leave this earth. These things will inevitably affect us for the rest of our lives on a subconscious level.

• You can’t possibly overload your brain because you can process 2 million bits of information per second. The vastness of our brains is this, if you learned one new piece of information per second it would take you more than three million years to challenge the capacity of your brain.

Wow! The Lord has truly given us a beautiful mind, which by the way has absolutely limitless potential! The Lord’s creative genius never ceases to astound and amaze me. We are limitless when it comes to challenging our minds. God has  given each of us a beautiful mind in which to stretch to endless proportions. Think about the possibilities, and not just in the natural, not just for the advancement of the things of this world, but think of the possibilities that the Lord can use our amazing minds to further His kingdom! Oh, the potential that is there if we only were willing to lay hold of just the smallest sliver of what He has created us to do!

Like riding a bicycle

When I heard these facts about the workings of our brains it encouraged me so much. Learning never came easy to me. I was the one in college that was found in the library on a Friday night studying for a test coming up in two weeks. Yes, I truly was that kind of person. If I had not stayed very rigid with my studies I would have flailed my way right out of college completely. I knew that with much determination and hard work I could turn college into a very successful venture for myself. It is encouraging to know that those countless hours spent studying were not wasted because all of that knowledge is still in there (somewhere). The struggle lies in being able to access those things tucked away in the crevices of our brains. I guess that’s why they say some things are like riding a bicycle. Once you get back into using that knowledge more on a regular bases it all comes back, just like it might be if you hadn’t ridden a bicycle in years and then suddenly needed that skill once again. That’s not to say that our skills wouldn’t be a little rusty, but it would come back to us. I am so grateful that we have such an amazing creator that has created us in such a way that we are not limited to our potential both with challenging our minds and the potential we have in the kingdom of God.

How GREAT is our God!

After learning these mind boggling facts about our brains, I have come to a better understanding of what it means in Genesis chapter 1 when it says...

“So God created mankind in his own image,  in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.” Genesis 1:27

God’s capabilities are endless! God has not even given us a percentage of mental capabilities that He Himself possesses. Wow! What an incomprehensible God we serve. In catching a small glimpse into the complexities of the human brain, and understanding God is the creator of our complex brain, which by the way to Him is so very simple and straightforward in His eyes, how much more vast is our God then our “simplistic” minds? Mind blowing isn’t it? It’s no wonder  that…

“no eye has seen, ...no ear has heard, and ...no human mind has conceived the things God has prepared for those who love him” 1 Corinthians 2:9

To read more about the creativity of our amazing God visit my blog post entitled “Our Creative God.”

Thank you Lord for our beautiful minds. We stand in awestruck wonder at your creative genius. There are no words that can even capture your vastness. We truly serve an amazing God. Thank you for the glimpse into just how truly mighty you are. Your vastness brings us to our knees in humility. Lord, we yield our lives to you because we truly know that our lives are in no safer place then in your outstretched hands.