ABCs of Spiritual Formation: M is for Mental Models
"A gentle answer turns away anger,
but a harsh word stirs up wrath."
-- Proverbs 15:1
BECOMING MATURE
How is your heart and soul as we head to Easter?
If I'm honest, this has been a discouraging season for me. I feel like I'm stuck in a dark closet in a magnificent castle on the shore of a lake surrounded by beautiful green countryside. I know what is outside of the closet but can't experience it, and yet I don't feel alone. Strange. Lots of conversations with God these days. I know Easter is coming both literally and figuratively which gives me hope.
M IS FOR MENTAL MODELS
One sign of a growing maturity is the ability to recognize the lenses through which we see the world. The world is complex and to make sense of it, we construct and plant models in our minds. These models allow us to navigate and engage our world. When they are accurate, we do well. When they aren't, we end up on dead end streets.
Mental models are related to narratives, which we will look at next week, but are not the same. We develop mental models from the narratives that make meaning for us. A mental model, according to Wikipedia, "is an internal representation (model) of external reality: that is, a way of representing reality within one's mind." In other words, I look at the complex world around me and my mind simplifies it so that I can cope and even thrive.
Here's a simple example of a mental model:
Proverbs 15:1
"A gentle answer turns away anger,
but a harsh word stirs up wrath."
To the degree I have internalized this model of behavior I will act accordingly.
A more involved mental model would be the Cynefin Framework to explain complexity theory. Watch the video if you have 9 minutes.
AWARENESS
I love mental models! I find them fascinating and such a wonderful example of how we are fearfully and wonderfully made by our loving Creator. Yet here's the thing, we are ignorant of most of the mental models guiding our thinking and behavior. Growing in awareness and more and more moving our models in line with the Bible's models is vital for becoming like Christ. A problem is that we read the Bible through our mental models which means we can miss what God is saying to us. This is what often happens when you are reading a familiar passage and see it in a way you never did before. Of course, the Holy Spirit is illuminating it for you, but the Spirit is working through different means and one of those is our changing mental models.
EXAMPLE
Let me give an example. When I say the phrase "Preach the gospel", what comes to mind? Keep that picture in your head and then read 2 Timothy 4:2 "Preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; correct, rebuke, and encourage with great patience and teaching."
When you saw "preach" in this verse I expect you pictured whatever you think preaching is. Where does your picture of preaching come from? Could preaching include standing in front of a Christian congregation on a Sunday? How about sitting with one person at a coffee shop? How about from a street corner with a bullhorn? How about to yourself standing in front of the mirror? Could it be a quiet conversation with a few friends? What other models of preaching are out there? Can you see how your mental model of preaching may impact the way you read and then apply this verse. Then, picture changing your mental model around preaching. What happens the next time you read this verse?
LOOKING AT OUR LENSES
Maybe as you read this you are finding, like me, a desire to get it all right. Or maybe you feel a bit panicky thinking about the enormity of this issue. This isn't about making a few changes and moving on. No, this is a lifelong process, but God's grace is sufficient for us wherever we are.
The call is to become. We are becoming who we were made to be, our true selves which only are fully realized in Jesus. The point is not to figure out how to get every mental model correct. That is impossible. The skill is to learn how to look at our lenses.
We see the world through glasses or filters as I have been saying. Everything changes when I learn how to look at my glasses and not just through them.
Note this because it is important. We are not trying to get rid of our glasses; we must wear glasses. We want to be more and more wearing Jesus glasses. To do that we take them off, inspect them, make adjustments, and put them back on.
This is what Paul is talking about when he says in Romans 12:2 to be "transformed by the renewing of your mind."
INTERPRETATIONS
You probably learned an inductive Bible study method at some point. You read the text and then interpret it and then apply it. I was told that only one interpretation is correct, but many applications are possible. If we want to do this well, we must work to understand our mental models because they determine how we interpret what we read.
This means we need to try to understand the mental models of the commentators we read as well as our own. One reason different people can come to different interpretations of the same text is their different mental models. One person thinks humans are evolving and progressing and interprets the Bible through that lens which means what scholars think today is, of course, going to be "better" than an interpretation from hundreds of years ago. Somebody else thinks miracles are not possible and everything can be scientifically explained, and he discounts every miracle account in the Bible. Another person thinks the Bible is fully inspired by God and without error and interprets it thusly. I could go on and on; I assume you get the idea.
FIFTH DISCIPLINE
In his wonderful book, The Fifth Discipline: The Art & Practice of the Learning Organization, Peter Senge lays out five disciplines necessary for an organization that wants to maximize the power and potential of the people who make it. They are Personal Mastery, Mental Models, Shared Vision, Team Learning, and Systems Thinking. This is not so important to know unless you are leading an organization, but I mention it because he has much to say about mental models. He makes it clear that mental models are necessary simplifications and that whether our models are wrong is not as big a problem as if they are implicit. If I know my models, then I can test them and learn whether they are right or wrong, helpful or detrimental. All my models hidden under the surface of my conscious are dangerous because they drive me forward without my awareness.
CHANGE
This is all cool stuff but useless and quite discouraging unless we can do something about it. How do we grow our capacity to see our lenses?
Senge encourages us to develop a practice of questioning ourselves. This fits well with the humble posture God honors (James 4:6). He lists three facets to "increase our capacity to surface and test mental models."
We need tools that help us grow our awareness and develop reflective skills. This is a big part of what we do in Focustsoul. Habits and relationships shape us. What you do (or don't do) and who you spend time with each day will determine who you become. These tools and practices need to be incorporated into our daily rhythm and routine (rule of life) that allow us to make space and reflect and listen and reveal our filters.
We need boundaries and systems in our community that push us to regularly check and engage with and internalize Biblical mental models. This moves us from our individual self to our collectives. We can do this in Bible studies, Sunday worship times, home groups, staff/team meetings, and wherever else we are regularly with our people. The key is to make it part of what we do, the way we do what we do, rather than an extra, add-on item.
Then we need to be shaping the culture of our community so that inquiry is encouraged and honored. But not only inquiry, also challenging our thinking must be the norm. We see this in the early church's council meeting in Acts 15. Almost everything happening in the book of Acts was some form of challenging the thinking up to that point.
We need to be connecting these three facets so they work together, intertwined to create a web of growth and development towards maturity in Christ.
I could go much more in detail in these areas, but my hope here is to raise awareness. You are free to keep pursuing this topic, and I pray you will.
SUPERPOWER
As we grow in this, we become more Christlike and loving towards those around us. The ability to be aware in the moment, to recognize why I am responding as I am and what mental model is driving it, and to be able to articulate that, allows me to be fully present, to be humble, and to walk in grace, full of the Spirit, without fear.
Of course, only Jesus was able to fully live this out, for he was fully aware of all his mental models and was able to clearly see the lenses through which he saw the world. He often explained what was happening and why he was doing what he was doing. I encourage you to read through the gospels asking the question, "What are Jesus' mental models?"
GRACE
In closing, let me shower you with grace. If you are in Christ, you are a new creation; you are loved and delighted in. Rest in that mental model and let your life flow out of it.
“What separates good thinkers from great thinkers is:
1) The number of mental models at their disposal;
2) The accuracy of those models; and
3) How quickly they update them when they're wrong.”
― Shane Parrish