Neuroplasticity and the Bible: How God Designed Your Brain for Change

Dr. April Joy explores the profound connection between neuroscience and scripture, emphasizing how God’s design enables us to renew our minds, overcome old patterns, and experience transformation through the Holy Spirit. This episode offers practical insights on biblical meditation, neuroplasticity, and spiritual renewal.

We connect neuroscience and Scripture to explain why repeated thoughts can feel like identity, and why that “stuck” feeling is not your final story. We define neuroplasticity, clarify biblical meditation, and lay out a simple way to notice thoughts, test them against God’s Word, and return to truth while depending on the Holy Spirit. 

• Why the brain can change and why repetition matters 
• how fear, shame, rumination, and avoidance become default pathways 
• the difference between the brain and the mind as embodied souls 
• why renewal is not technique-driven but Spirit-led sanctification 
• what biblical meditation is and what it is not 
• how prayer and attention show up in brain research without reducing God to brain activity 
• a simple framework for taking thoughts captive by aligning them with Scripture 
• what a stronghold is and how repeated lies start to feel true 
• a weekly practice of noticing and writing down recurring thoughts 

Now, if this episode encouraged you, I would love for you to subscribe to my podcast, share it, please give me a Google review, and share it with someone who may need it. And follow along as we continue exploring the connection between neuroscience, the nervous system, mental health, spiritual formation, and the renewal of the mind through scripture. You can find me at the Christian Psych NP, and I also write longer reflections on Substack at the Christian Mind Reset. 

References

·- Baxter et al. (1992). Brain metabolism changes following medication and behavioral therapy for OCD. PMID: 1514872.

- Bible Hub — Strong’s Hebrew 1897 (hāgâ).

- Bible Hub — Strong’s Hebrew 7878 (sîaḥ).

- Bible Hub — Lexicon for Philippians 4:8.

- Draganski et al. (2004). Training-induced changes in brain gray matter (neuroplasticity). Nature.

- Dunn, R. S. (2025). When You Don't Have the Words: Praying the Psalms. Lexham Press.

- Fox et al. (2015). Neural correlates of gratitude. PMID: 26483740.

- Goldberg et al. (2020). Smartphone-based meditation improves well-being and reduces psychological distress. PMID: 33245288.

- Hebb, D. O. (1949). The Organization of Behavior: A Neuropsychological Theory.

- Karns et al. (2017). Gratitude practice increases altruistic neural responses. PMID: 29375336.

- Kral et al. (2018). Mindfulness meditation and amygdala reactivity. PMID: 29990584.

- Lazar et al. (2005). Meditation is associated with increased cortical thickness. PMID: 16272874.

- Lutz et al. (2008). Attention regulation and meditation. PMID: 18329323.

- Lutz et al. (2009). Mental training enhances attentional stability. PMID: 19846729.

- Newberg, A. (2014). Neuroscientific study of spiritual practices. PMID: 24672504.

- Newberg et al. (2003). Cerebral blood flow during meditative prayer. PMID: 14658967.

Subscribe, like, share, and give us a comment:

· https://www.instagram.com/THECHRISTIANPSYCHNP

· https://substack.com/@thechristianpsychnp

· https://stan.store/thechristianpsychnp  - The Christian Mind Reset, Book 1

Disclaimer: This podcast is for informational and educational purposes only. It contains general information and is not healthcare, medical, or therapy advice. Content does not replace the counsel of your professional healthcare provider, nor does it establish a provider-patient relationship. Always consult your provider before changing your health routine.

If you are experiencing significant anxiety or distress, please seek care from a qualified healthcare professional, licensed Christian counselor, or pastor.

Emails, comments, and messages are not monitored for emergencies and will not receive a response regarding medical or therapy advice. Do not use these methods for urgent concerns. If you are in crisis, having thoughts of self-harm, or experiencing a medical or psychiatric emergency, call 911 (US), contact local emergency services, or go to the nearest emergency room immediately.

Transcript

Welcome And The Big Idea

Speaker 0:00

Hello, hello, and welcome to the Christian Mind Reset Podcast. I am Dr. April Joy and I'm so glad you're here. I'm a psychiatric mental health nurse practitioner, psychotherapist, a Bible teacher, and a student of human behavior, neuroscience and scripture. I started this podcast because over time I kept noticing things that I just could not ignore. The more I studied mental health, psychology, neuroscience, the nervous system, and the word of God, the more I began to see that the many of things science describes are things that scripture has been teaching us all along. And I was interested personally in learning more about them. What's amazing is that our brain can change and our mind can be renewed. Whole patterns do not have to become our permanent identity. Fear and shame, identity, hopelessness, and strongholds may feel familiar, but the good news is that familiar doesn't always mean it's true. Every day in my work, I see how the brain is shaped by what we focus on, what we rehearse, and what we believe in practice. It's amazing to see how things in our life that we believe to become true become true the more that we focus on them. Patterns form through repetition, attention, emotion, and meaning. And scriptures always pointed us in that direction. God tells us to renew our minds, to guard our hearts, to meditate on his word, to take our thoughts captive, and to fix our mind and our eyes on Jesus and also to abide in him. And it's amazing when we actually do those things what happens to our nervous system. I believe all this matters because we were not created to live disconnected or distracted or overwhelmed. We were created to worship. We were created to abide. We were created for communion with God. Our minds were literally wired to worship. Here on the Christian Mind Reset, we're going to explore how the brain functions alongside what scripture reveals about transformation. We will talk honestly about fear, stress, anxiety, habits, thought patterns, strongholds, spiritual formation, and renewing the mind. But what we're going to do is we're going to keep this grounded in truth, surrender, and the work of the Holy Spirit, because true change is ultimately in his work. And I truly want that to be the focus of my ministry and podcast is that what we talk about today and every day is not a one plus two equals three. The Lord calls us to do things. There's different seasons in our life, but it is the Holy Spirit that does the transformation. There is no formula that we can do to become holy. The Lord, the Holy Spirit makes us holy. Science can help us understand some of the ways the brain and nervous system work, but scripture, it gives us the deeper truth of who we are and why we're created and how we were transformed. Many people ask the question every day, what am I here for? And I hope this podcast helps. Answer that if you're listening today and don't know what you're here for. I hope this podcast helps you understand that you are created and loved by a God who deeply knows you and understands you and wants you for his own. The Holy Spirit is not in your transmitter, and sanctification is not simply brain chemistry. Please remember that. At the same time, when we study the brain with humility, we can stand in awe of the God who made us. So before I go any further, I want to make it clear that the renewing of the mind is not something we accomplish by brain science. Our positive thinking, meditation, worship, it is not in any human effort at all. Neuroscience helps us understand how patterns form and gives us language for what we're seeing, but only the Holy Spirit transforms the heart. He is the one who convicts, conforms, teaches, strengthens, sanctifies, and forms us into the likeness of Christ. So when we talk about neuroplasticity, we're going to talk about that in a minute if you don't know what that word is, attention, habits, and thought patterns, we're not replacing the spirit with science. We are simply looking at the design of the brain while remembering what true renewal is and that it comes from God alone. One of the things that a key understanding about our brain and about our body and about ourselves is that we were made by God. In Psalm 139, the Bible says, For you form my inward parts. You need to be together in my mother's womb. I praise you for I'm fearfully and wonderfully made. Now this includes our brain. It includes the nervous system. It includes a mind that can be renewed and a life that can be transformed by the grace and power of God. That's such a, you know, for me, so for those of you who don't know what a psychiatric mental health nurse practitioner is, that is my role. And one of the things that I do is I work with patients who may need therapy, they may need medication management, they may need just help walking through some stages in their life. That is what I do. I'm trained as a registered nurse, and then I went for further education, obtained a master's degree as a psychiatric nurse practitioner, mental health nurse practitioner, and then later got my doctorate degree in nursing. And one of the things that that people believe is that they are fill in the blank. I'm bipolar, I have OCD, and they began to align themselves with that, and they feel that that is who they are and that they're stuck and that they can't heal parts of their brain, and that just isn't true. And that's that feeling of being stuck. And one of the things we're going to talk about today is neuroplasticity. And what that is, is that is the mind's capability of of what we call rewiring and changing the pathways through repetition. And and that's one of the things that God designed us to do is to change our thought patterns and and he can help us do those things. Scripture's been pointing us to

Why You Feel Stuck

Speaker 5:35

this all along, way before neuroscience or psychology or any of the sciences had an explanation for what was going on in the brain. So let's begin. Okay. So many people, I hear it every day, feel stuck. They tell me they feel stuck. I'm sure you've heard it if you've not felt that way. I know I felt that way before. A lot of times people feel trapped in old patterns and they feel like no matter how hard they try, they just can't. They just can't stop. They feel that way. But remember, feelings change, but God's word and God, his truth never does. It never changes. He's the same yesterday, today, and forever. Sometimes those patterns that we're talking about can show up as anxiety, worry, depression, shame, fear, control, rumination are thought cycles that feel impossible to break. And even Christians, there are seasons when we feel like we're fighting the same thoughts over and over. We feel like sometimes we have the same reactions. We may be short-tempered or it it could be fear, it could be depression. Who who knows? But but you know, and God knows that same emotional pattern. It it happens over and over again, and we just feel like we can't break it. But one of the most helpful things neuroscience helps us to understand is that the brain isn't fixed. And God designed the human brain with the capacity to change. In neuroscience, this is called neuroplasticity, and all that means is that the brain can adapt and reorganize and strengthen pathways based on what we repeatedly think about, practice, experience, and give our attention to. And that's the really important thing that I want to focus on today is that this is repetition, okay? It's not just a one-time I can think something, it's repetition. Things didn't happen overnight and it's not going to change overnight. The reason that the repetition is important is because what we repeatedly focus on can begin to feel automatic. I'm sure many of you remember if you drive a car or ride a bicycle when you first learned, it seemed kind of clunky and and hard. And now it's like easy, it's muscle memory, it's you don't even think about it sometimes. And that, you know, our pathways and our brain formed all of those connections to ride the bike or drive the car, and our brain learned the maps where we were going, and we don't have to think about it. It's like, okay, I'm going to work and we know which roads to turn on and how to merge onto the highway or whatever it may be. And um, that's just the same as with our brain. When same as anything when we what we focus on begins to feel all automatic. When a person rehearses fear over and over, the brain becomes more efficient at running that fear pattern. When someone repeatedly dwells on shame, the mind can begin to interpret life through that lens. We're going to talk about that more and more in this podcast, the way that people see things and beliefs. That's one of the things we're going to talk about on a future podcast episode is beliefs. When someone practices avoidance, the brain can learn avoidance as the default. But the opposite is true, so the brain can learn truth and safety, gratitude, courage, trust, peace. Those types of things can be learned. When we repeatedly bring our thoughts before God, when we meditate on his word, when we practice gratitude, we pray, worship, and respond differently over time. We're not just having one positive moment, we're practicing a new direction of attention. Romans 12 2 tells us to be transformed by the renewing of our mind. 2 Corinthians 10 5 tells us to take every thought captive and put it under obedience to Christ. Colossians 3 2 tells us to set our mind on things above. Hebrews 12 2 tells us to fix our eyes on Jesus. And all the theme here is our mind and our thoughts. It's so important that we take captive our thoughts, that we make them obedient to Christ. And if you don't know what that means, which I think most of us probably have an idea, it means aligning it with the Word of God. Scripture scripturally continue Scripture continually directs our attention back to the Lord, back to the Bible, back to praise and worship, back to keeping our eyes fixed on Jesus because what we repeatedly dwell on shapes us. At a biological level, repeated focus can strengthen neural pathways. At a spiritual level, Scripture teaches that transformation happens through the renewing of the mind and the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit. Again, that's the Holy Spirit, not us. Those two things are not the same. And we need to be careful that we don't collapse the two together. When we look at them together, we can see something beautiful though. Repetition. The soul is formed by what we repeatedly turn to, which is why the Bible tells us to fill our minds with things of

Brain Versus Mind

Speaker 10:03

God. Okay, one thing I want to just point out here, in case you don't know, now I know some people who are listening to me are science people like me and other people are artsy and maybe biblical, or maybe they're very um mechanical and they may not have studied science at all. So I just want to kind of talk about something for a minute and make it clear. The brain and the mind, they are not the same thing. Your brain is not the same as your mind. They're deeply connected, but they're not identical. The brain is a physical organ inside your skull. It is made of neurons, electrical signals, chemical messengers, and networks that help regulate things like breathing, heart rate, movement, memory, emotions, sleep, attention, and stress. Your mind includes your thoughts, beliefs, attention, emotions, awareness, imagination, desires, and the inner life you bring before God. Yes, there are neurons in the Yes, there are chemicals and things like that in the heart and gut that respond with the brain, but today we're talking about the brain and the mind, okay? One simple way people sometimes describe it is this way the brain is a structure, the mind is what the brain does. But as Christians, we also understand that human beings are more than biology. We are embodied souls. We live in bodies designed by God with brains that matter deeply, but we're not merely biological machines. And you know that we're created by God, accountable to God, and loved by God, and invited into renewal by his spirit. There's a lot of people, even Christian influencers who talk about neuroplasticity as if the brain is the whole story. Like, oh, we can rewire your brain. I can teach you how to rewire your brain. Brain, the brain is only part of it, it is not the source. We must have salvation, sanctification, and spiritual transformation. That's what I was saying earlier in the podcast. Please don't ever think that April is saying you can re that April can rewire your brain. No, we I can teach you ways to help redirect your thinking, your attention, your focus, tell you what's going on inside your body and your brain when these things are happening, but it is the Holy Spirit that renews and that convicts and comforts and teaches and strengthens and transforms us. Neuroscience helps us understand part of how repeated patterns shape the brain, but scripture reveals the deeper reality. We are being formed into the likeness of Christ. Isn't that beautiful? Oh my goodness. I just think now that is that is good stuff right there.

What Biblical Meditation Means

Speaker 12:29

Okay, so for a minute, what is meditation? Because we have to know like what are we talking about right now? So I want to talk about meditation for a minute because we were just talking about repeated focus. So what are we thinking about? And I think that goes into even deeper of where is your focus on when you wake up in the morning? Where is your focus before you go to bed tonight? Where's your focus at lunchtime? What what is going on up there in your brain? The reason I'm asking that is not to shame you at all. It's just that sometimes we don't have the rhythm set up. Sometimes we don't have the habits built or the structure that we need to be conducive to godly living. So step one of this podcast is are we meditating? And I think that that is important because it's what our mind goes to. If we don't fill our mind with the word of God, then the world is going to fill it with everything else. And I mean that so respectfully today. I am not shaming you if you are busy. There was a time when I literally worked three jobs, had so much going on, little kids at home. It was a lot. And I totally understand being busy. I totally do. But when we don't make time for God, we we drift apart. So I want to talk about meditation and what it is because we can't do something unless we know what it is. The word Hagah means to meditate in the Bible. That's the Hebrew word in the Old Testament. And it is much richer than simply sitting quietly or relaxing. It carries the word or idea of murmuring, pondering, musing, speaking, or tuning something over in the heart and mind. So when we talk about biblical meditation, we're not talking about emptying your mind or escaping reality. We are talking about spirit-dependent practice of filling the mind with truth, rehearsing the word of God, praying honestly before God, and allowing what is true to become what the mind returns to again and again. In neuroscience, meditation is often used as a broad term for practices that train attention, awareness, and emotional regulation. Researchers often describe different types of meditation in the literature. And that can include things like focused attention meditation, where a person gently returns attention from one chosen focus, and open monitoring meditation where a person observes thoughts, emotions, and sensations as they arise, immediately reacting to them. That language can be helpful because it gives us a way to talk about our attention and awareness, and the brain learns to return what it is practiced to. But biblical meditation has a different center because it is directed toward God and his word. Instead of trying to empty the mind or escape reality, biblical meditation teaches us to bring our thoughts, our fears, our desires, our grief, and our questions into the presence of God. It is slow, attentive, and it's relational focus. Think about if we're going to meditate on Psalm 23. We actually are thinking about our Heavenly Father. We're thinking about Jesus being the good shepherd. We're thinking about things that He's done for us, how He is with us. We think about His presence during the time of storm. Our attention is on a real lived experience. It's not just thinking about, for instance, the color red if someone's focusing on trying to empty their mind. Sometimes they will try to think about something like that. And this is a very different type of focus. It is turning the word of God over in their mind or in your mind, remembering God's character and praying truth back to him and letting his voice become louder than the fear, shame, or confusion that may be trying to take over. This is one of the reasons Psalm 1 describes the blessed person as the one whose delight is in the law of the Lord and whose meditates on it day and night. And this is one of the reasons I was talking to you earlier about what is the first thing you do in the morning? What is the last thing you do at night? What are you doing on your lunch break? One of the reasons that's so important is because we must fill our mind with the word of God. One of the things that I think is a wonderful habit is reading or praying the psalm every day. I think that that is one of the best things. I started doing it last year. Um, I'm gonna give a plug-in to my friend Reed Dunn. He's a pastor and wrote a book last year called When You Don't Have the Words. And it was truly life-changing for me. It it taught how to pray the psalm and it really and truly changed my life. I pray the psalm when I wake up in the morning and before I go to bed. That has truly, truly changed my life. And if I could tell you one thing, and it doesn't mean that you have to do the psalm, it literally can be any Bible verse. It can be a prayer that you meditate on. You could ask the Holy Spirit to teach you to pray or to help you pray. But if you don't have a prayer to pray or you don't know what to meditate on, any verse in the Bible will do. But I highly recommend the psalm. And we're gonna talk about that a little a little bit later in my ebook to go with meditation and we meditate on the Bible, it changes our mind because not only are we thinking about the Lord, but neuroscience shows that when we pray and when we meditate, our brain actually changes. In scripture and meditation, of course, it's not passive space spacing out, it's active attention and relationship with God. And it is a practice of returning your mind to truth while remaining aware that the power is not in the technique, but the living God who meets us there. All right. It's not like, oh, I'm going to meditate, I'm going to focus on Psalm 1 and my brain's going to rewire. No, no, no, no, no. It is abiding. It is worship. It is worship. Now, guys, there's a field of research that is called neurotheology. And that takes

Prayer Research Without Reducing God

Speaker 18:28

a look at the relationship between the brain and religious or spiritual practice. Now, Dr. Andrew Newberg, he is one of the researchers often associated in this field. He's written several books. Um, he has a website. He's a really, really interesting guy. I'm really in awe of all that he's done. He's written about spiritual practices that he's studied and that shows that multiple brain networks, including the frontal lobe, parietal lobes, and thalamus, and limbic system, are all involved uh in these practices. One of the things that he looked at was prayer and he found that there was brain activity. And one of the things I just want to add here is that just because there's brain activity, all right, when people pray or meditate, that that does not simply reduce God to brain activity. Okay. It's just one of the things that we're going to talk about right here. The brain is involved because God made us embodied. That's that's what I think. One small preliminary study by Dr. Newberg and his colleagues, they looked at three experienced Franciscan nuns. Now, this was a pretty, this has been talked about a lot. So you might have heard this before, but they he did a study of them during meditative prayer that involved the internal repetition of a phrase. Now, compared with baseline scans, the prayer scan showed increased blood flow to the prefrontal cortex. Now that's the part of the brain that's involved in attention, focus planning, and self-regulation. Think about that kind of like the CEO of your brain. And the study also found an increase in blood flow in the inferior, parietal, and inferior frontal regions of the brain. And in everyday language, that suggests that prayerful focus attention may engage parts of the brain involved in concentration and meaning making. But the study was very small, and in the science world, we usually have bigger studies for things like this. However, there have been a lot of studies, so please don't just think that's the only study that's ever been done. More recently in 2025, a meta-analysis study looked across neuroimaging studies that are just those brain scans basically related to Christian behavior, such as prayer and Bible recitations. The research found that these Christian practices were associated with frontal brain regions, including the right middle frontal gyrus and the superior frontal gyrus. These areas are often connected with working memory, cognitive task, and executive function. With a more liberal threshold, the same analysis also found involvement in the anterior cingulate and medial frontal gyrus regions, often associated with reward. Now that was young at almost a 2025 study. Again, this is not faith by brain scans. And it does not mean that prayer is merely a brain exercise. I hope you hear me say that. It is not what I'm saying. Prayer is communion with God, period. Scripture meditation is worshipful attention to his word. But these studies do help say with humility that prayer and biblical meditation are not empty or passive practices. They involve attention, memory, emotion, meaning, the body, the brain, and the whole person as we turn ourselves toward God. So when I talk about meditation, I'm talking about biblical meditation, slowing down with the word of God, returning to attention, praying honestly, remembering God, and allowing the Holy Spirit to work in us as we abide in Christ. So the brain may be engaged in that process, but the power is in the presence of God and through the Holy Spirit. What

Neuroplasticity And Repetition Explained

Speaker 21:48

is neuroplasticity exactly? Neuroplasticity we touched on it earlier, but basically your brain is made up of billions of specialized nerve cells called neurons. And these neurons communicate through electric. Electrical signals and chemical signals. Now, they connect through a tiny spaces called synapses, where chemical messengers help carry signals from one cell to another. When certain pathways are activated again and again, those connections can become stronger and more efficient. One of the things that a lot of people think about is, and I tell my patients, when we think about pathways, to think about yourself being like in a like in a field, like a meadow. And there's like a well-worn path. But that path, I always taught, tell them like the path that you're on now has like, it's not good. When you get there, it's like a pit, but this other pathway isn't there yet. And you have to cut it down. And imagine like having some type of tool or a machete or something weed eater, and you're having to constantly cut down that trail. And eventually it's going to be a natural trail. But your body's going to want to go back down the well-worn trail. But a lot of times that's not a healthy one. So we have to actively work to make that new pathway. Neuroscientist Donald Heb, way back in the day, described a principle that is often summarized as neurons that fire together, wire together. And that just means that when brain cells are repeatedly active together, their connection can strengthen over time, which is one of the reasons we need repetition. So this is one of the reasons that we talk about meditating on God's word day in and day out so that we can form those pathways. Whenever we are scared, we can meditate on scripture. Whenever we have fear, shame, guilt, whatever it is, we can replace that with the word of God. We can pray the word of God. It's not just repeated thoughts that can shape our brain, it's repeated activation. And activation can come from thoughts. It can come from emotions, behaviors, attention. The brain changes according to what it is repeatedly asked to do. Repeated fear can strengthen fear circuits. Repeated avoidance can strengthen anxiety pathways. Repeated gratitude can help train attention toward what is good. Repeated prayer and meditation on scripture can help the mind return to truth. And then it becomes a habit. And I'm not talking about vain repetition. Please hear me. When I first started praying the psalm every day, and I was thinking to myself, this doesn't feel natural because it's not my prayer, but it is the language of prayer. And that is what I'm trying to remind you of today is that if you don't have a prayer practice, because it's a privilege to pray. It's a privilege to meditate. I think about people who lived back even, you know, during Jesus' time, even, you know, 1500 years ago, people didn't have access like we do to the Bible. And it's a privilege to pray. It's a privilege to read the Bible. We have so we have so much that people didn't have before. And it's something that we need to have gratitude for. And speaking of gratitude, repeated gratitude can help train attention toward what is good. Repeated prayer meditation on scripture can help the mind return to truth, and repeated obedience can form new patterns of response. This is one of the reasons habits form so easily, and it's why certain thoughts can begin to feel like identity. I'm sure you've heard somebody say, or maybe you've said, This is just who I am. When what we're really saying is we're describing a deeply practiced pattern. I'm so blank. Is that true? But scripture never treats those patterns as permanent. God's word tells us to renew our mind. In Romans 12, 2, it says, be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Second Corinthians 4 16 says that inwardly we are being renewed day by day. And Philippians 1 6 reminds us that he who began a good work in us will carry it on until the day of completion. Guys, that's my life verse. So no, we're not stuck. Change is possible, renewal is possible, but biblical renewal is not about trying harder in our own strength. Remember that it's not a mechanical thing. It should not feel like a burden. It should feel like a blessing. It is not about returning to the truth, abiding in Christ, submitting our thoughts to Him, and trusting the Holy Spirit to do the work. Remember, that's the key. I want to mention a couple of studies.

Studies That Show Brains Change

Speaker 25:59

For those of you who are science driven, I want to talk about a couple of studies. And I'll keep it simple. If you want to dig in more, there's going to be references in the show notes. Before I mention these studies, I want to make it clear that I'm about to summarize our mindful-based studies rather than studies of biblical meditation. Okay. So they're not, these aren't like meditation on the Bible or meditation on a verse or a psalm or a prayer, okay? It's just talking about repeated attention, repeated practice of meditation with measurable brain changes. All right. As a Christian, we root attention in something specific, which is God's word, prayer, worship, obedience, and communion with Christ. All right. So now that we've set that tone, one important study that was led by researchers affiliated with Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, they followed 16 adults who had not regularly practiced meditation before. They completed an eight-week mindfulness-based stress reduction program and practiced mindfulness exercises for about 27 minutes per day. Researchers used MRI scans, which are detailed brain scans that show physical structures in the brain before and after the program. After the eight weeks, they found measurable changes in several regions of the brain, and they found an increase in gray matter concentration in the left hippocampus, a region involved in learning and memory. Tell me that's not amazing. They found increased gray matter in concentration. Wow, in the left hippocampus. That is just amazing. And they also found changes in area involved with self-referential processing, perspective taking, and emotional regulation. Imagine that. A lot of people have trouble regulating their emotions. In a related study from the same research group, participants who reported reduced stress after an eight-week mindfulness-based intervention also showed decreased gray matter density in the part of the amygdala, a brain region involved in fear, stress, and emotional threat processing. Now, this is not to say that meditation is a cure-all. They don't mean every type of meditation produces the same effect, and they do not replace scripture, prayer, wise support, medical care, or the work of the Holy Spirit, but they do support an important principle in neuroscience, and that is repeated patterns of attention and mental practice can be associated with measurable changes in the brain. Another well-known study on neuroplasticity was published by Draginski and colleagues in Nature in 2004. Researchers wanted to know whether learning a brand new physical skill could be associated with measurable changes in the adult brain structure. They scanned adults who had never juggled before. Juggling is so fun. I've never mastered that skill myself. Okay, they asked one group to learn three-ball juggling routine over three months, and they compared them with a group that did not juggle. Now, after three months of practice, the participants who learned to juggle showed increase in gray matter in the areas of the brain involved in processing visual, in processing complex visual motion. Now that makes sense because juggling requires the brain to coordinate vision, timing, movement, and prediction. Now, the research also scanned the jugglers again after they stopped practicing. And what was really interesting is the gray matter increase became smaller after the skill was no longer being practiced, which suggests that some structural changes in the adult brain can be experience dependent and may change when the demand is removed. Again, we need to be careful because the study does not prove that the new habit produces the same kind of brain change. MRI scans also cannot tell us exactly which cellular processes cause those grave matter differences, but the larger principle is still important, and that is that repeated practice can shape the brain in ways related to what is being practiced. Now, if we take a step back and we look at this through a faith lens, we can see design. You know, the Lord tells us in Psalm 139 that we're fearfully and wonderfully made, that we were knitted together in our mother's womb. And that is just so beautiful that He made our brains where they can adapt and change and our nervous system that could learn to heal and regulate and our mind can be renewed. God did not say, you know what, once you're, you know, once you're off this beaten path here and, you know, you've messed up, then you're wired that way, and and it's just done, and you've messed up your life so much, or you're so anxious or so depressed, or you're so grief struck that things are never going to get better. No way. That that's, you know, remember the Lord's mercy is chasing you every day. Don't forget that. He created us with the capacity to grow, praise God. But even more importantly, he gave us his word and his spirit and his presence. And guys, we didn't like when I think about the fact that we actually have the Holy Spirit in us, that is just mind blowing. The scripture's been saying this all along, guys. We didn't need science to tell us that. We don't need science to tell us how we came to be. We know how we came to be, don't we? Scripture's been telling us all along that there is so much weight on repetition, right? Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by what? Say it with me. The word of God. David talks about meditating on God's word day and night. Joshua said he would not let the book of the law depart from his mouth, that he would meditate on it day and night. Paul told us to renew our minds and to take every thought captive and set our mind on things above. In other words, scripture assumes repetition because that's how we are formed. They knew that way back then. Over time, repeated thoughts start to become familiar.

Taking Thoughts Captive In Practice

Speaker 31:10

And what becomes familiar begins to feel more believable, and what we believe eventually shapes how we live. We're going to have a whole podcast on belief. It's phenomenal. And belief is not pretending something is true. Biblical belief is learning to return to truth when the pressure hits. It is learning to trust God when fear is loud. It is learning to bring the thought, the feeling, the memory, and the reaction before the Lord instead of letting it go unruled and unchecked. So that's another reason why taking our thoughts captive is so important. And taking a thought captive is not suppressing it. It's not saying, so I'm going to talk about that just really, really. There's going to be a whole podcast on taking thoughts captive and metacognition. So I don't want to like spoil that right now. But what I do want to say is if you don't know what that means, I feel like most pastors preach on this or teach on it, or that some Bible teachers talked about this, but I'm going to go over it really quickly. Okay. So taking a thought captive, there's many types of thoughts, but a common thought would be, I'm never going to change or I'm never going to get better. And what I'm talking about here is your mind. If we have a constant thought of no one likes me, no one loves me, let's just say that. Well, we compare that thought to the word of God. So the first thing you do is you notice that thought. The second thing you're going to do is you're going to ask, is it true or not? And the third thing you're going to do is you're going to align it with the Bible. And the Bible says that God has loved you with an everlasting love, that he sent his son to die on the cross for you. So that's not a true statement. Okay, so so that's one way to take your thought captive. And then you can ask the Lord to help you. And then you're going to fill your mind. I would fill my mind with as many Bible verses on God's love as possible. And I would find a church with a small group and surround myself with people who are God's people and who will help me through that. That is taking your thoughts captive, turning it over to the Lord. And sometimes taking a thought captive is simply pausing to say, okay, I'm spiraling, or I'm assuming the worst. That's self-talk. We're gonna have an episode on self-talk too, guys. I'm rehearsing fear or this thought feels loud. But that does not mean it is true, guys. Just because a thought is loud does not mean it's true. Then we bring that thought under the authority. Does this agree with what the Bible says? Does this align with what's truth? Is this producing fear, shame, control, despair, obedience? And then we replace it with the truth. Now, not something positive. Everybody loves me because everybody doesn't. We live in a world with a lot of, you know, hate. We live in a world where Satan right now is the prince of the air. So there's going to be people out there that don't like Christians, that don't love Christians. But there's a lot of people who would love you and do love you, and God loves you. So at the end of the day, what lasts, and he loves us, and that's where we keep our eyes. The Bible says we keep our eyes on the Lord. He's the author and finisher of our faith. So don't, don't look around, look up, look up. So you might pray something as simple as, Lord, this thought is loud, but you are the Lord. Help me submit it to you. Show me what is true. And that's where neuroscience and discipline overlap beautifully. The brain usually does not change because of one good thought. It keeps it changes as we keep returning the truth again and again. So eventually that process is going to be natural for you. And spiritually, we are not doing this alone. We're returning to the Lord and the Holy Spirit is renewing us day by day. And Jesus modeled this too. Remember, scripture is clear that this is not just psychology. There's a spiritual battle for the mind. Paul tells us that weapons of warfare are not of the flesh, but have divine power to destroy strongholds. He says that we destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and we take every thought captive to obey to Christ. And Jesus modeled that power in the wilderness. Remember, when he was tempted, he didn't spiral, he did not debate his identity. He didn't argue. He didn't say, he said it is written again and again and again. He turned to scripture. He didn't argue with Satan. And we don't argue with Satan. We return to the truth. Jesus knew the word. Of course he did. He is the word. He spoke the word. He showed us how to fight the spiritual battle. He would say it is written. And that is what we are to do. It is written, it is written, it is written. Renewing the mind is not just self-improvement. Praise God. It is alignment. It is learning to respond with truth because the truth has been planted deeply within us. And the only way to plant it deeply, guys, is to meditate on the word of God. That's why our first episode is on meditation.

Strongholds And Your Weekly Assignment

Speaker 35:27

Really quickly, what is a stronghold? When 2 Corinthians 10, 4, and 5 says, For the weapons of our warfare are not flesh, but have divine power to destroy strongholds. We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and we take every thought captive to obey to Christ. Now that Greek word translates now that Greek word for stronghold can refer to a fortress or for or a fortified palace. Strongholds can look like deeply reinforced patterns of thinking that oppose the truth of God. Lies, fear, shame, hopelessness, anxiety, bitterness, pride, insecurities, condemnations, old beliefs that have been rehearsed over and over, they begin to feel like reality. And here's the important part. You cannot take captive a thought you never notice. And we talked about that earlier. And you cannot bring a hold to God if you refuse to acknowledge it or if you're tied to it. Remember the what the what Jesus says? We have to let loose of things on earth. So I want to give you a simple assignment this week. Okay, you're going to start paying attention to your thoughts without condemning yourself. So you're not going to say, My gosh, I'm so stupid for thinking this. I'm so dumb. What's wrong with me? I'm never going to, you know, stop feeling this way or my thoughts are just abnormal. We're not, we're not going to do that. Okay. We're not going to obsess over them. We're going to get off that that wheel and we're just going to observe them like clouds that are floating by. You can write them down if you want to, your top, your top 10, top five to ten thoughts. Maybe they sound like I'm not good enough. I'm never going to change. Something bad's going to happen to me or my family. Nobody cares about me. I'll always fail. I'm too broken. God's disappointed. No one else has sinned like me. I'll never heal. I have to control everything. I'm alone. All those things. Okay. Write them down because over the next several episodes, we're going to talk about how to take those thoughts captive, how to submit them to God, and replace lies with truth. Now, if the thought, I just want to give you a couple of examples, all right, of what how to do this so that you're not confused or you don't, you're like, oh, she didn't tell me what to do. So I'm going to tell you what to do. All right. If the thought comes up, I'm alone, okay, you can bring, you can begin by bringing it to Hebrews 13, 5, I will never leave you for forsake you. If the thought is I will never change, you can bring 2 Corinthians 5 verse 17. If anyone is in Christ, he's a new creature, new creation. If the thought is I'm too weak, you can bring 2 Corinthians 12, verse 9, my grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness. If the thought is I'm constantly afraid, you can bring it your thoughts to 2 Timothy 1 7, for God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and a sound mind. If the thought is God is done with me, you can bring Philippians 1 verse 6, this is my life first, guys. He who began a good work in you will carry it on until the day of completion. The goal is not to be perfect every night, okay? It's just awareness. And then the second step will be would be surrender, renewal, and prayer, of course, and learning to redirect the mind back to truth. We have gratitude in there too. We're gonna talk about the gratitude later. Because what we repeatedly focus on and dwell on shapes us. And through Christ, even strongholds can come down. Hallelujah. Let me just say that for me, it's been true, guys. It's been true. The Holy Spirit abiding in how renewal actually happens.

Abiding Over Self Improvement

Speaker 38:37

How is that gonna happen? So just remember that this is all through the power of the Holy Spirit. Neuroscience shows us what we rehearse gets stronger. The brain changes with with repeated focus and practice. But as we said earlier, the scripture never says we transform ourselves. Transformation is always described as the work of God. Paul says we're being renewed day by day. It doesn't say we renew ourselves, and that's just process, patience, grace, and dependence. I know you know what they say, Rome wasn't built in a day. It was not. We're doing it one block at a time, but the Lord's helping us, isn't he? In John 15, he says, Abide in me. This is Jesus. Abide in me and I in you. He tells us that he is the vine and we are the branches, and apart from him we can do nothing. And that matters so much because sanctification, becoming more like Christ, does not happen because we think the right thoughts hard enough. It happens because the Spirit of God works in us as we remain close to Christ. This is where biblical meditation becomes part of the rhythm of abiding. When we spend time with scripture, and I don't mean rushing or skimming it, but really paying attention to it. We are doing more than gathering information. We are returning to the Lord, we are training attention, slowing reaction, and letting truth shape what the mind returns to under pressure. And again, there's no right technique. This is the Lord's work. Paul says where the spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom, and that freedom is from bondage. And I just want to say hallelujah again. Liberty and freedom from old patterns, liberty from the lie that we're trapped forever in who we used to be. And when we fail, you know why? Because we do all the time. Sanctification doesn't stop. When we confess and return, then we can abide again. And that's the rhythm of renewal and grace. His mercy and goodness are chasing us, guys. Scripture can say that we are already new creations and that we're being renewed because both are true. In Christ, we are made new and by the Spirit we are still being formed. When we talk about taking thoughts captive, it's not about policing your mind all day. Please don't do that. If you have a tendency to have obsessive, compulsive thinking, do not do that to yourself. It's just called being aware, like a cloud that's passing by. You are not going to get on that hamster wheel of rumination and make yourself spiral. You're just aware of it because the first step is becoming aware. You're going to notice it, bring it to the Lord, write it down, reshape your truth according to God's word. All right, whatever that is for you, like, oh, I'm my body, something was wrong with my body. Nope, I'm fearfully and wonderfully made. You can trust the Spirit to do what only He can do. And just remember that renewal takes time, healing takes time, sanctification is the faithful work of God and the Holy Spirit. Praise God. And God is not impatient with us in the process. He is so long-suffering. He abides with us. All right, guys, in the next few episodes, we're going to slow down and talk more about the brain and faith together. We'll talk about biblical meditation, metacognition, and what it looks like to take our thoughts captive, to think about them without condemnation. We'll talk about how to gently redirect the mind back to the truth, how the Holy Spirit works in us over time. We might even go into some gratitude and self-talk. I'm not sure yet. We'll also look at research in a simple, understandable way, not to replace scripture. Of course, you guys know I would never do that. But to help us stand in awe of the God who made us, I'll do a podcast one day on the awe, the neuroscience of awe. I've written a substack on that, guys. And I want you to remember this as we close. Your brain can change, but more importantly, your mind can be renewed and you're not as stuck as you feel. I promise you that. The same God who

Subscribe Share And New Ebook

Speaker 42:03

created you, saved you, and began a good work in you and is faithful to continue that work. Now, if this episode encouraged you, I would love for you to subscribe to my podcast, share it, please give me a Google review, and share it with someone who may need it. And follow along as we continue exploring the connection between neuroscience, the nervous system, mental health, spiritual formation, and the renewal of the mind through scripture. You can find me at the Christian Psych NP, and I also write longer reflections on Substack at the Christian Mind Reset. I'll link everything in the show notes, don't you worry. I'm also excited to tell you that I just released my first ebook, The Christian Mind Reset Meditation on the Psalms, a 28-day guided journey through scripture that talks about neuroscience reflection, prayer, biblical meditation, and more. Remember, it's not about emptying the mind. It's not about manifesting self-worship or pretending something that isn't true. It is about meditating on God's precious word. It's about praying in Scripture and giving our attention back to the one who deserves it and back to truth and inviting the Holy Spirit in the process. Thanks for spending time with me today, guys. Let's close in prayer.

Closing Prayer And Safety Disclaimer

Speaker 43:08

Dear Heavenly Father, thank you for creating us fearfully and wonderfully. Thank you for giving us your word, your spirit, and your presence. Thank you that you did not leave us without wisdom, direction, or a helper, the Holy Spirit. Lord, we ask that you would fill us with the knowledge of your will and with wisdom that comes from your spirit. Help us become aware of thoughts we have been rehearsing. Help us to notice lies, fears, strongholds that have shaped us, and teach us to bring them under the authority of Christ. Renew our minds day by day. Strengthen us with the power that only you can give us. Teach us to abide in you, to meditate on your word, and return to truth when fear is loud. Thank you for rescuing us, for giving us, continuing the work you've started in us, shape us into the likeness of Christ, not by our own striving, but by your Holy Spirit. We trust you in the process. In Jesus' name. Now I just want to make a really quick disclaimer. This podcast is for educational and faith-based reflection only. It is not medical advice, psychotherapy, or a substitute for professional mental health, and it does not establish a patient-provider relationship. If you are considering changes to your mental health or physical health, please consult your own qualified health care provider in your area. If you are experiencing thoughts of harming yourself or others or you are in significant emotional distress, please seek immediate help by calling 911, contacting your local emergency services, or calling 988 or texting 988 in the United States, or going to your nearest emergency department. You are not meant to carry this alone. God bless you guys.