Here in Season 1, we’re getting our feet wet in the realm of “deep discipleship” – the journey into the world of ideas and desires as we become more like Jesus. Because ideas are essential to discipleship, let’s explore some of their characteristics: origin, location, formation, and awareness. Where do ideas originate? Where do we find them today? How are they formed in our hearts? How do we become aware of them? Brian closes with a powerful personal story about how Jesus kindly revealed a dark idea in his heart and continues to transform it today.
TRANSCRIPTION
The Anatomy of Ideas
Welcome to the Soil and Roots podcast: cultivating deep discipleship in community. Iโm Brian Fisher.
This is Episode 8: The Anatomy of Ideas
Thanks for taking this discipleship journey with us. Whether youโre listening to the podcast or reading the episodes by yourself, with your family or friends, or as part of a Greenhouse, Iโm just glad youโre here.
If youโve heard me talk about Greenhouses and arenโt quite sure what those are, thereโs an episode down the road called โWhat is a Greenhouse?โ that you might want to check out. You may hear some terms or phrases that arenโt yet familiar because youโll be listening to the episode out of order, but youโll get the basic gist of it. Or just visit the website or drop us an email.
By now, youโve probably discovered that Soil and Roots is not your typical Christian podcast. It isnโt a Bible study, itโs not a collection of sermons. Weโre exploring the slow, intentional journey of discipleship from a somewhat non-traditional perspective, through the lens of the transformation of these ideas that sit on the bedrock of our hearts.
The Great Omission
Along the way, weโre discovering some concerning differences between biblical assumptions about discipleship and modern, Western assumptions about discipleship.
In the New Testament, a disciple is someone whose heart, desires, and ideas are increasingly molded to be like those of Jesus. As our ideas are transformed, our thoughts, words, actions, behaviors, relationships, and sometimes even our health, how we use time and money, change as we are spiritually formed. We are becoming more like Jesus and, in the process, becoming the best version of ourselves.
But in modern Christianity today, the prevailing assumption is that discipleship, our spiritual formation, is primarily centered in the mind. We โmake a decision for Jesus.โ We mentally agree to certain doctrines and belief systems that may or may not influence our hearts. Our vision of what a disciple is has been boiled down to someone whoโs prayed a certain prayer, tries to live a decent life, and waits to die so that we can finally be with Jesus in a version of heaven that seems to have very little to do with the third rock on which we currently live.
Last week, we laid out five key elements for our spiritual formation: time, habit, community, intimacy, and instruction. These are common to many formative experiences, but many of us may not have access to groups that embody these five elements in our discipleship.
This gap in our spiritual formation naturally leads to confusion about the role of the local church. If the churchโs primary mission is to make disciples, people whose character is being formed more like Jesus, how does a local church do that? How does a church lead a congregation to become disciples when we tend to make little time for spiritual formation and habits, weโre not necessarily trained on how to share our stories and hearts appropriately with others, and we generally spend far more time with co-workers than with fellow churchgoers?
If we combine our typical American lifestyle with the fact that the modern church functions from a wrong idea of anthropology (that we are primarily formed through our minds) many local churches have become little more than educational centers with occasional volunteer opportunities, some good music, and a place to congregate with like-minded friends. These arenโt really environments set up to explore the later stages of our critical journey. Itโs hard to engage in deep character formation in this type of environment.
God bless our pastors. We donโt always give them much to work with.
Plus, if our desire is to become more like Jesus, we need to know Him well and ourselves well. That means our personal history, our story, and the ideas that form our hearts may be critically important as we move forward.
Formation through Ideas
Here in Season 1, weโre working on getting our feet wet with these unconscious ideas. We arenโt used to framing Christianity, discipleship, formation, and culture through this type of lens, so weโre slowly getting acclimated to the soil, as it were. It takes a while to accept that the hidden, unconscious ideas in our hearts may not actually align with our firmly held beliefs. Thatโs just an uncomfortable thought.
So far, weโve explored an idea of the Gospel, a few ideas of anthropology (what it means to be human), and an idea of expectation, that our assumptions about the future deeply impact our interaction in the world today.
Weโve just touched on the fact that our origin story and our initial caregivers have an outsized influence on our discipleship. How we relate to and experience God, others, ourselves, and creation today has been deeply impacted by the ideas formed in our hearts when we were very young. Our first few years are typically the most spiritually formative.
Ideas as Stereograms
Iโll keep tossing out some simple examples of ideas as we move through the season. Once we learn to identify ideas in ourselves, others, and culture, itโs like a whole new world opens up to us.
You may remember the posters and images called Stereograms, or Magic Eye pictures, that were popular in the 90โs. If you donโt know what they are, just look up โStereogramโ online. I put an example of one on the blog for this episode if you want to check it out.
At first glance, the pictures just look like random patterns that make you dizzy. But if you stare at them long enough, relax your eyes, move your head slowly back and forth, a 3D image appears that you couldnโt see before. I had one with a hidden image of the Statue of Liberty hanging on my wall as a kid.
It takes a while to train your eyes to see the hidden image, but once you get the hang of it, you can quickly find them on any stereogram. Thatโs sort of the way ideas work. It takes a while to learn how to discern them, but once you do, you start identifying them everywhere.
As we dive into the anatomy of ideas, we need to resist the temptation to view this as a purely academic exercise. Remember, we embrace ideas in our hearts โ they are deeply embedded with our desires. If we view ideas as just another part of Christian education, we are missing the point. Ideas have energy, they have power, they move us. Ideas arenโt so much intellectual conclusions as they are experienced realities.
Windshield and Coffeehouse Friends
Here’s another quick example of how ideas work.
Chances are, you have two categories of friends: windshield friends and coffeehouse friends.
I have a few windshield friends. I generally only hear from them when they are driving; when they have โwindshield time.โ Most likely, we all call someone from time to time when weโre driving, but a windshield friend only contacts you when theyโre in the middle of doing something else: in the car, taking a walk, or cleaning the house. This type of friend is always multitasking and, in an attempt to be efficient, fits you in when they have some extra bandwidth while doing something else.
A coffeehouse friend is very different. They invite you out somewhere where the two of you enjoy uninterrupted time together. When you sit down, you realize with some shock that their phone is nowhere to be found. They are dialed into you. When they ask you how you are, they pay attention to your answer, they ask follow-up questions, and they are genuinely interested in you and your story.
My guess is that you recognize these two friendship types and, if you took a few moments, could place most of your friends in one of them. And itโs fine โ thereโs nothing inherently wrong with windshield friends. We all have people in our lives who are good acquaintances and just pleasant people to be around.
However, if we stop and think through these two categories through the lens of the underlying ideas in your friendโs hearts regarding your relationship, what might we learn about them and about ourselves? Given that the ideas that power us are very often formed through relationships, how do our windshield and coffeehouse friends impact us?
Hereโs just one idea thatโs worth exploring: a coffeehouse friend is someone who pursues you. They press into you; they genuinely seek your goodness. When theyโre with you, theyโre focused with you. When theyโre not with you, they still seem to be thinking about you. You are constantly in their orbit, and you know they desire to know you.
This just isnโt the case with your windshield friends. They donโt really desire to know you. They donโt pursue you. They donโt want to harm you, but they arenโt actively seeking your goodness either. In fact, if weโre honest, in some cases them reaching out to you is actually more about them than it is about you.
These two types of relationships can form different ideas in our hearts. A coffeehouse friend is forming strong ideas of identity and value in you โ you are worth pursuing. You are worth being known. You are someone worth experiencing.
A windshield friend may be forming a very different set of ideas. What value do you have if you are constantly being fit into their schedule? What ideas of value are being reinforced in your heart, as your heart realizes this friend isnโt pursuing you, and they donโt really have a desire to know you?
Again, most of us have both types of friends and, if weโre honest, we probably play both roles in our circle of friends. Weโre asking deeper questions here, though. What sort of ideas are forming in our hearts as a result of these categories of friendships? Are we aware of the ideas being formed? What impact might that be having on our unconscious, hidden ideas of identity, value, and purpose?
Okay, hopefully, that quick example is helping us see the hidden pictures in the Stereogram as it were.
Because these ideas are so vital to our discipleship, weโre going to get a bit technical and break them down into their key characteristics. Weโre going to explore four of them.
Origin: Where do ideas come from
Location: Where can we find them
Formation: How our hearts are impacted by ideas
Awareness: How we usually become aware of ideas in our hearts
Letโs go back to the Creation Picture that we introduced in Episode 1. You can find it on the resources tab at soilandroots.org. The outer circle is all of creation and the cosmos, the seven mountains in the background represent the seven mountains of culture (family, church, business, media, government, A&E, and education), the tree is you, the trees around you are other people, the roots of your tree represent your heart, and your roots are planted in soil. The soil is the ideas that your heart embraces. Because we live in the tension between two kingdoms, our soil holds both light and dark.
Origin
So, where do ideas come from?
Somewhat obviously, God is the origin of the ideas of the Kingdom of Light. All of His ideas are good. They are true. They result in life, flourishing, love, joy, peace, and so on.
I introduced you to โCore Ideasโ in the last episode. These are fundamental ideas in the hearts of every person. They are identity, anthropology, value, power, purpose, and love. Who are we, what are we, what are we worth, what authority do we have, what is our purpose, and who do we love.
When our hearts embrace ideas of light in these six core categories, we experience freedom and joy. Our desires bend towards God, and we become more like Christ. Our relationship with God deepens, though we also learn to love others and ourselves well, and we have a kingdom impact on creation and culture. Godโs ideas lead to life.
However, there are two sets of ideas, and the Kingdom of Darkness has its own. Here is a critical point: the ideas of darkness are not original. They can only be distortions, corruptions, or variations of Ideas of Light.
Weโve seen so many superhero movies that sometimes we assume evil always shows up as a villain dressed in black with bad makeup. Generally speaking, evil is not so easy to spot. Some of the most wicked people Iโve ever met are also the nicest. They go to church; they pray for their friends. Theyโre usually admired and respected by lots of people.
Ideas of Darkness can be very subtle and, on the surface, look fantastic. They often appeal to good desires in our hearts, but appeal in a way that we are caught off guard by their true intention, which is to harm and kill us.
Letโs look at a prime example of a dark idea in the very first sin.
In Genesis 2,
โThe Lord God commanded the man, saying, ‘From any tree of the garden you may eat freely; but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat from it you will surely die.’โ[1]
In Genesis 3, the serpent approaches Eve.
โAnd he said to the woman, โIndeed, has God said, โYou shall not eat from any tree of the garden?โ
The woman said to the serpent, โFrom the fruit of the trees of the garden we may eat; but from the fruit of the tree which is in the middle of the garden, God has said, โYou shall not eat from it or touch it, or you will die.โ
The serpent said to the woman, โYou surely will not die! For God knows that in the day you eat from it, your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.โ
When the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was desirable to make one wise, she took from its fruit and ate; and she gave also to her husband with her, and he ate.โ[2]
Letโs look at this conversation through the lens of two ideas: an Idea of Identity and an Idea of Power. What are the ideas of identity and power that God reveals to Adam and Eve about themselves?
Light Idea of Identity
Adam and Eve are created by God, and they are good. They are made in Godโs image. They are not divine, though they enjoy an in-person relationship with their Creator.
Light Idea of Power
God gives them rule over the earth in Genesis 1. God grants them authority to steward all of creation on His behalf. He does not, however, give them divine authority. They are human, not gods. They do not have power over death. They are not all-knowing.
What ideas of Identity and Power does the serpent suggest to Eve?
Dark Idea of Identity
You can be like God. You can become gods.
Dark Idea of Power
You will not die. You can have power over death.
Instead of presenting God as the loving Creator, the serpent suggests God is a lying, power-hungry divine who is keeping Adam and Eve in the dark to protect Himself.
The serpent didnโt argue against the existence of God. He didnโt present radical new ideas. He presented subtle variations of Godโs ideas that suggested doubt to Eveโs heart. He appealed to her good desires, but in a twisted way.
Instead of trusting God to provide those things, she trusted the darkness and ate from the tree, as Adam did. Sin entered the world, and the Kingdom of Darkness was born. Thatโs the power of ideas.
Weโre going to explore lots of ideas on Soil and Roots, and we are going to see just how often ideas of darkness appear similar to ideas of light. And our hearts are easily fooled.
Location
But maybe itโs hard to find Ideas of Light. How does God promote, reveal, and invite us to embrace His ideas? Where are Ideas of Light located?
They are quite literally everywhere.
Here are five locations:
- God wrote us a personal book. He shares about Himself and His ideas in His book, and itโs available to any of us at any time in our high-tech age. We call this Godโs Special Revelation.
- He wrote us a second book, the book of creation. God puts His ideas in every cell, in every star. His creation is littered with His ideas. We call this General Revelation.
Modern Protestants tend to politely freak out when we talk about Godโs second book, but we shouldnโt. Jonathan Edwards is credited as saying, โNature is Godโs greatest evangelist.โ Itโs a shame we donโt usually teach our kids how to spot Godโs ideas in the created order. We learn about His creativity, His design, His love, His wonder, and His purposes by studying His good world.
We generally steer clear of talking about nature because we fear that any mention of the environment will automatically conjure up nature worship or environmental extremism. Thatโs too bad, especially considering you canโt read the Bible without some base knowledge of Godโs second book. The Bible relies heavily on nature metaphors and images, including the design of our own bodies.
- Others. God shares His ideas with us through people in our lives. He may share His ideas through our spouses, children, family, and close friends. Mentors, pastors, and other wise leaders. God weaves His ideas into our lives through other people.
- Ourselves. We come โhardwiredโ with Ideas of Light already in our hearts.
- Himself. As if writing us a book, writing His ideas into every speck of the universe, sharing Himself through other people and ourselves, is not enough, if we follow Him, He takes up residence in our hearts in the person of the Holy Spirit. He lives inside us.
Do we get the sense of just how passionately and purposefully God pursues us? His good, truthful, life-giving ideas are, literally, everywhere, both outside and inside us.
Formation
So how do our hearts come to embrace ideas of light and darkness? What makes our hearts bend towards darkness or light?
There are three types of idea formation: initial, abrupt, and progressive.
Initial formation: We come wired with some ideas of light. We know we are eternal; thatโs an idea of anthropology. According to Romans, we have some sense of morality even if we donโt acknowledge or trust in God.
But because we are born in sin, we also come wired with some ideas of darkness. If you donโt believe me, you havenโt raised a toddler. We donโt train our kids to lie and steal, but they lie and steal anyhow.
Abrupt formation:
The ideas in our hearts sometimes change very quickly and dramatically for two reasons: divine intervention and trauma. Divine intervention leads our hearts to embrace ideas of light. Trauma usually results in our hearts bending towards ideas of darkness, at least right after the trauma.
Salvation is a great example of a divine intervention that results in radical, abrupt changes in our core ideas. Salvation doesnโt always occur quickly, of course, but many times it does. Our core ideas of identity, anthropology, value, power, purpose, and love all change from darkness to light in various ways and to varying degrees.
On the other hand, trauma can quickly distort and corrupt our hearts and turn them towards darkness. Tragically, our culture continues to see an acceleration of abuse, exploitation, and betrayal, which results in all manner of harm: self-abuse, substance abuse, relationship destruction, suicide, and other violence. These are evidence of profound negative changes in our Core Ideas.
Child abuse, sexual abuse, emotional and physical abandonment, adultery, divorce, and related actions normally result in abrupt changes to the ideas in our soil.
A young girl whoโs been molested may experience very harmful, sudden changes to at least her ideas of identity, power, and value. Her concept of self will be distorted. Her heart will be confused about her powerlessness, and she will often struggle with how valuable she is and to whom.
A son whose father abandons the family may experience terrible changes to his ideas of identity, value, and love. When a father leaves his family, he corrupts the very idea of what love is โ sacrificially giving of ourselves to someone else.
The loss of a loved one can cause abrupt changes to our ideas, as can other losses such as a failed friendship, job loss, infertility, or illness.
In the case of being victimized, the closer the relationship to the one causing the harm, the bigger and more insidious the changes in our soils. A single instance of harm can certainly cause traumatic changes to our hearts, but prolonged harm can cut even deeper.
If we have ever experienced either โbig Tโ or โlittle tโ trauma, we understand why time is essential to discipleship. Some ideas of darkness are so deeply embedded in our hearts because of trauma that it takes long periods of time, the introduction of various life-giving habits, and intimacy with healthy people in a committed community to slowly turn ideas of darkness into ideas of light. For some, itโs a lifelong process. And thatโs okay.
Anyone who has suffered from various forms of PTSD knows it takes time, healthy habits, appropriate intimacy, an accepting community, and repeated instruction to retrain our hearts and bring them back to ideas of life and light.
We may be harmed through abrupt formation, but we donโt heal that way. We heal through progressive formation and the constant, relational reinforcement of ideas of light.
Progressive
Progressive formation refers to the steady influence of ideas over long periods. In a positive sense, this process happens through creation, culture, others, God, and His word.
But most Christians who are aware of progressive formation are aware of it in culture, and we tend to only see dark ideas taking shape there.
For example, we can just look back at the cultural mountains of media, education, and arts and entertainment to see how various ideas of darkness have slowly, consistently, relentlessly made their way into our homes and hearts over the past several decades. They have seeped into our soils.
The kingdom of darkness understands the power of ideas well and uses culture to advance its ideas with tremendous success. Why? Because itโs efficient. Using cultural institutions to saturate hearts with ideas of darkness is basically crop-dusting โ the enemy doesnโt need to go heart by heart. The enemy can reach millions of hearts at once by efficiently spreading its ideas through the seven mountains of culture.
Ideas of darkness can also progressively invade our hearts through unhealthy relationships. Women who escape from abusive, long-term relationships share how their core ideas of identity, value, power, purpose, and love were corrupted and damaged by their abuser, and how it may take years of healthy, life-giving engagement to recover core ideas of light.
Ideas of light progressively influence our hearts as well, and it is beautiful to watch. If youโve ever had the privilege of walking with a friend or family member through a crisis or relationship that harmed their hearts, chances are youโve watched God gently invite the victim back to ideas of light through your relationship, other caring friends, Scripture, life circumstances, prayer, and just your presence. Just the fact that you sacrifice to be with the victim, consistently, faithfully. Itโs a process โ itโs progressive.
As Americans, we are used to fulfilling our desires immediately and getting what we want when we want. But our hearts donโt work like that. And if we try to shortcut progressive formation and recovery, we may end up doing more harm than good.
Awareness of Ideas
Lastly, how do we become aware of the hidden ideas in our hearts?
Unfortunately, we typically donโt dive into our hearts to discover our hidden ideas until we are in crisis. Because most of us donโt think about the ideas and desires that govern us and tend to go through life on the surface, we develop all sorts of intricate coping mechanisms to avoid discerning our hearts.
But when a crisis hits, and our coping mechanisms begin to fail, we either pile on more coping mechanisms or we surrender and dive into our hearts to find out why what weโre doing isnโt โworking.โ
The obvious problem is that if we wait to uncover our hearts until a crisis arrives, we will be ill-prepared when it does. And a crisis always comes.
Iโve had personal experience with living with hidden ideas in my heart, and Iโll give you one example to think about.
Iโve led various organizations over the years, and years ago, I was running one facing some painful challenges. On top of that, I was dealing with a situation involving a close friend and had to make some no-win decisions. I couldnโt find a way to resolve a difficult set of circumstances without someone being hurt, and my friendship was probably going to fall apart.
This had been going on for several weeks, and I was starting to fray. I had been shouldering these challenges well on the outside, but inside, I was falling apart.
In my house, our water bill is perpetually high, and Iโm the reason. I think in the shower. Thatโs where I solve problems, explore new ideas, and where I hold my own mental debates. Itโs quiet, and there are no distractions.
Anyhow, I was in the shower trying to figure out what to do with all these seemingly impossible circumstances when the weight of my role, the decisions I had to make, the emotional strain, and the hurt that was sure to come fell on me very suddenly. Iโm typically a composed person, but in an unexpected moment, I went from having it all together to falling apart.
I collapsed onto the floor and began to weep uncontrollably. If you have ever cried so hard you canโt breathe, you know that your lungs make some strange, almost otherworldly sounds.
Understandably, my wife Jessica woke up when she heard me gasping. She rushed into the bathroom, saw me on the floor of the shower, and without a second thought, opened the door, sat down, and grabbed me as hard as she could. And she just held me. She didnโt say a word; she just sat there, fully clothed in her pajamas, soaking wet, holding me.
Iโve attended a few thousand worship services in my life. Iโve been in prayer service after prayer service. Because of my church music background, Iโve sat in most every type of denominational setting. But in all my years, Iโve never had a more worshipful experience than that morning. I have never experienced a more powerful expression of Jesusโ love for me than my wife rushing to meet me in my grief and anxiety, taking me as I was, getting herself and her clothes soaking wet, and just holding me. Just being with me.
That crisis was actually a milestone in the transformation of an idea of darkness in my heart.
If you had asked me five or six years ago if God loves me, I would have said absolutely yes. Iโve known that since I was a kid. If you had asked me if I had to do anything to earn Godโs favor, I would have said no. I knew that God loved me because of Jesusโ life, death, and resurrection.
If you had told me that I was embracing an Idea of Love that was more dark than light, I would have vigorously denied it.
But I was. Even though I intellectually knew God loved me and that there was nothing I could do to earn His favor, even though I had been taught that dozens and dozens of times, my heart held on to a different idea. For various reasons, my heart embraced the idea that God loved me if I performed for Him. His acceptance of me was based on what I did for Him. My heart and my head were in two very different places, and I didnโt even know it. My idea of love was more dark than light.
That morning, when my wife rushed in to be with me in the midst of my anxiety, was a pivotal moment in my heart, giving up this idea of darkness about love. Jessica didnโt care if I performed for her; her love for me wasnโt dependent on my good decisions or my poor ones. It didnโt matter if I succeeded or failed, it didnโt matter if I had lots of friends or had none. She loves me because she loves me.
I still struggle with this dark idea of love at times, and I suspect I will for the rest of my life. But itโs more light than dark now, and there is wonderful freedom in that.
Ideas of Light originate in God, and they are everywhere. He never stops inviting us to embrace them, and He writes His ideas into every speck of creation.
I hope that even this week, you take a few moments to look around you and see how God is inviting you to embrace Ideas of Light about your identity, your value, and your purpose. And I hope youโre patient with yourself and others around you, understanding that progressive spiritual formation, this transformation of dark ideas to light, really does take time.
Thanks for listening!ย If youโd like more information on the work of Soil and Roots, check out the website at soilandroots.org.ย Feel free to email us at fish@soilandroots.org.ย Weโll see you next time.ย
[1] New American Standard Bible: 1995 update (Ge 2:16โ17). (1995). The Lockman Foundation.
[2] New American Standard Bible: 1995 update (Ge 3:1โ6). (1995). The Lockman Foundation.
