The Neuroplasticity of Thankfulness

As we close on November, let’s think about Thanksgiving in a different way.

 

Recently in a conversation with a church leader, he brought up some difficult questions he was wrestling with because of crushing circumstantial challenges.

As with most of us, our theological and doctrinal certainties are shaken and tested when experiences in life force us to reconfigure our belief systems. This level of deconstruction is helpful when it causes us to reconstruct in ways that retain (1) a posture of humility, (2) a view of goodness in the character of God, and (3) the critical need of intimacy with Jesus.

It's helpful to compare this to discoveries in neuroplasticity.

Neuroscientists know a lot about how the brain functions following strokes or traumatic brain injuries. In seemingly involuntary processes, it can reorganize itself by building new neuronal connections and is believed to be able to actually create new neurons.

For instance, some studies determined that within 48 hours following brain damage resulting in cell death and lost neurons, the brain endeavors to find other neural networks to maintain functionality. In the weeks that follow, new support cells are recruited and new pathways are formed. During the ongoing months, new “wires” that transmit signals in nerve cells are created in order to connect with other neurons as the brain continues to reorganize around the damage.

In other words, the familiar pathways are abandoned and new ones are created for the sake of maintaining critical functionality.

In the three points numbered above in reconstruction, I’ve found that there is a primary exercise of the soul that protects the ability to create healthy new neural/spiritual pathways: thankfulness. It actually forces a profound, but simple act of humility—the assumption that there is Someone to receive it.

Or as G. K. Chesterton is famously quoted in this season: “If my children wake up on Christmas morning and have somebody to thank for putting candy in their stockings, have I no one to thank for putting two feet in mine?”

This may be the thinking behind St. Paul writing, “…give thanks in all circumstances....” He is clarifying that we don’t give thanks for all circumstances, but in the middle of the most difficult and trying times, we mindfully express an attitude of thankfulness.

When Jesus taught his disciples to pray for God’s will to be done on earth in the same way that it is always accomplished in heaven, there is the assumption that God’s will is not always done on this planet. He is inviting us to partner with him in fulfilling his Father’s plans through this amazing and misunderstood organism called the Church.

And so, we don’t thank Him for the painful situations we humans endure here, but rather we thank Him in the midst of them as an act of faith that He is good, even though His will may not be being accomplished. And as image-bearers of that same goodness, we do the work of bringing His will to be fulfilled here.

The man who was brutally whipped five times by zealots, beaten three times with rods, stoned by religious leaders and left for dead, shipwrecked three different times, imprisoned in multiple instances, and constantly on the move, wrote those mind-bending words: give thanks in all circumstances.

So as leaders, shall we intentionally model it?

Let your spirit create some new pathways around pain for the sake of critical functionality: your role in bringing hope to this world.

And recognize that thankfulness is the neural connector.

Dave Workman | The Elemental Group

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