Dr. Mark Rutland is one of my favorite preachers. On his current podcast, he talked about his first pastoral appointment. He was twenty-two. “They should not give a driver’s license to a 22-year-old. They sure shouldn’t give a church to a 22-year-old boy.”

I was on the treadmill with my ear buds listening to Rutland’s podcast. Things got real personal. I was also twenty-two when I began preaching each week at the same church. I probably proved his contention.

Several years later, an acquaintance who established a school of religion at a Big-Ten school talked to me about going back to school. With two small kids, we considered 6 or 7 years in school. “How old you going to be if you spend six years at University and Seminary?” He asked. “How old you going to be if you don’t?” So, I enrolled where the school would accept some of my Bible College credits and was appointed to a 2-point charge.

It was the late 60s. Great time to be in college! Speakers at the weekly assembly were testing out the F-word. (They succeeded. It sounds like it is the most important and most often publicly used word in the English language.) Riots in Iowa cities and assassinations in America. I was confronted with new thoughts in sociology classes; ideas that I had ignored, diminished, or didn’t bother with. One was about having an “inner-child.”

I’m currently reading Lewis Howes’ book on Mindsets.¹ He tells of riding in an Uber and listening to the female driver’s story of abuse and trauma. “The physical evidence of her past still remained, but the energy she radiated was full of positivity and kindness.”

She said, “It doesn’t hurt anymore. I’ve learned how to heal it and turn the pain into wisdom.”

Howes assesses the story: “She has taken intentional action to bring the cycle of trauma to an end.” Then he adds, “Whatever your trauma—and we all have past trauma of some sort—if left unhealed, it will direct your future too. Trauma perpetuates trauma. To stop the cycle, you have to let your adult self make the decisions instead of the younger, wounded self.” (Page 132)

Howes observes, “Until I did the healing work my inner child needed, I ended up…feeling shamed and wronged.” Two paragraphs later he says, “Only when I started to heal my inner child and the trauma from my past did I finally start to feel like I was acting authentically as my true self.” (Page 133)

“I acknowledged that child part of myself, I felt capable of becoming a new person. Now when I am faced with a trigger, I can say those unhealthy behaviors are not who I am anymore.”  

Dr. Karyn Purvis has a descriptive phrase for kids who grew in a difficult atmosphere: “Kids from hard places.” For example, the abandoned, assaulted, abused, alienated, attacked. Kids from hard places would also include life events or experiences that were mis-interpreted and carried into adulthood.

“Experiences can be both formative and deformative. Trauma (real or mis-interpreted) disrupts helpful neural patterns and creates unhelpful ones. Those disruptions produce counterproductive coping strategies and behaviors.”²

Michael Hyatt and daughter Megan in their Mind Your Mindset ³ nail this down:

“Our strategies…will always be based on our underlying story about our situation. So to create an effective strategy, we must have an accurate understanding of reality. Stories drive strategies and strategies drive results.” (p.26)

Helpful, healthy, successful—or not!

“If we want better results, we will have to tell ourselves better stories” (Hyatt).

I’ve been thinking about my “inner child”—did it ever grow up, or did it accompany me into my golden years? For sure, some of the fears, self-concepts, emotional responses were formed in grade school and then teen years brought a second iteration and a second litter.

The Uber driver’s statement, “I learned how to heal it…” raises questions. And Howes’ statement, “Until I did the healing work my inner child needed….” Are those New Age statements or self-help hopes? If your spiritual tradition included or includes prayers for healing, altar calls, healing evangelists, can you remember or imagine being encouraged to heal your inner child? Is that possible? Does redemption reach that far?

I began the next paragraph with “Brief, shorthand, foundational comments:” I ended with what looked like Augustine’s Confessions. Suffice it to say when people talk about “healing my inner child,” that is soul work, not spirit-work. The Father, Son, Holy Spirit are involved to the degree we invite them. We individuals have responsibility for soul-care. When Apostle Paul says, “…all things become new,” (2 Corinthians 5:17), does he mean instantly, immediately and forever? For me, wounds, bad habits, trauma, ignorance did not change completely and immediately. I used those characteristics to interpret my world and to build coping mechanisms.

^“…being confident of this, that He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion” (Philippians 1:6, NIV).

God wants us whole—moving toward His projected destiny for us, but He won’t water the roots.

We could talk a while about self-healing in Jesus’ authority. “Doing the healing work,” in my view, is planting roots of a desired life. What are the character traits—your brand—you do not possess or project, but desire? The books and articles I list all contain suggested ways to change. A common habit is to read, but not “do the work.”

Dr. Dweck’s research is built around the two mindsets: The Fixed Mindset and The Growth Mindset. In the link below, an article about Dweck’s study concludes with “How to Change a fixed mindset.” It is a very helpful place to start.

https://www.verywellmind.com/what-is-a-mindset-2795025

I’ve been thinking about writing, The Caleb Initiative. God said about the 85-year-old,

“…my servant Caleb has a different spirit and follows me wholeheartedly” (Numbers 14:24).

©D. Dean Benton

RESOURCES

¹The Greatness Mindset, Lewis Howes, (Hayhouse, Inc Publishers) ©2023

²Mind Your Mindset, Michael Hyatt & Megan Hyatt Miller, (Baker Books) © 2023

Water The Roots

Carole and I take turns watering the garden of veggies and flowers. When the hose is in my hand, she reminds me not to get water on the leaves or blossoms.

“Plants need water to grow, but they take nutrition only through the roots, never through blossoms or leaves or branches. Only through the roots. Water the roots!”

Watchmen Nee said, “Jesus called me a branch. I am not becoming one or will be one day, but I am a branch now.”

The Holy Spirit is the grower of Spiritual Fruit. I cannot grow fruit such as love, joy, peace, patience…. That is Holy Spirit’s job. The branch carries nutritional growth from the root. Water the root. Fruit may be live and good; fruit may be destructive or crippling depending on the roots we choose and nourish.

Think this through. When we “get saved” or are “redeemed” by confession and choosing to give our lives to God, it is our spirit that is saved and aligned with God. To renew our soul—will, emotions, behavior—the action is to intentionally establish specific roots and then nourishing them. The roots we nourish will grow specific fruit.

“Your mindset is a set of beliefs that shape how you make sense of the world and yourself. It influences how you think, feel, and behave in any given situation. It means that what you believe about yourself impacts your success or failure.”

Carol S. Dweck. Ph. D. a mindset researcher found there are two mindsets: “The fixed mindset makes you concerned with how you’ll be judged; the growth mindset makes you concerned with improving.”

I am determined to follow Jesus and concentrate on growth.

1. Fixed Mindset

People in a fixed mindset, with its focus on permanent traits, quickly fear challenge and devalue effort. In this mindset, success is about proving you’re smart or talented—validating yourself. All setbacks or failures are an indication in this mindset that you’ve proved you are permanently flawed—not enough. Effort is seen only as a way of proving you didn’t get selected or adequately equipped.

“…for in the fixed mindset it’s not enough just to succeed. It is not enough just to look smart and talented. You have to be pretty much flawless. And you have to be flawless right away” Actually, people with fixed mindset expect ability to show up on its own, before any learning takes place” (Dweck-page 24).

One more:

“…in the fixed mindset, everything is about the outcome. If you fail—or if you are not the best—it’s all been wasted. The growth mindset allows people to value what they’re doing regardless of the outcome (Dweck, page 48).

[If you are driven by love to accomplish something a failure is not necessarily proof you must quit, but to learn what you lack or find correct resources—grow skill(s) or accrue what is missing.]

2. Growth Mindset

This assumes human and spiritual qualities and characteristics can be cultivated. People with growth mindsets don’t just seek challenge, they thrive on it. (Dweck) Those with growth mindsets have better mental health. A fixed mindset will be a constant engagement in frustration, reminder of limitations and no way out of the cul de sac.

How would you relate a growth mindset to Jesus’ concept and promise of The Abundant Life in John 10:10?

God has promised to place dreams and visions within each of us. He does not promise to develop our potential.

Constant, endless curiosity and challenge seeking.

That means we focus on the root—establishing growth mindsets and watering the root. “Seeking challenges” is not a scavenger hunt. It is focusing on what you love and what you seek to accomplish and confronting challenges that restrain or barricade. That is watering the roots—God’s plan.

“…growth mindset lets people—even those who are targets of negative labels—use and develop their minds fully. Their heads are not filled with limiting thoughts, a fragile sense of belonging, and a belief that other people can define them” (Carol S. Dweck, Ph.D—Mindset—The New Psychology of Success, Ballantine Books, © 2006, 2016) page 80.

Developing Your Primary Mindsets:

My friends, Mike and Danielle operate a cleaning company. (Superior Shine) Window washing, commercial building power washing, house siding and whatever else needs to be cleaned. Mike told me he was bringing his power washer to our house to clean our sidewalks. And he did. Fifty-plus years of grim, dirt, stain gone! Other than the cracks and unlevel cement, the sidewalk looks new!

It is startling. Our son took one look and exclaimed, “When did this happen?” I admire the work. I wonder what I’m supposed to do with a clean sidewalk. It might be clean enough to eat off it. There is such a change perhaps I should alert the media.

Moving toward growth mindsets will attract as much attention and awareness of obvious change. That change will become evident. Years of inferior and inadequate decision making and living below expectations and desires. Dr. Carol Dweck says: “How we can learn to fulfill our potential in parenting, business, school, relationships” will take on a new feel and look.

Lewis Howes emphatically reminds us mindsets are connected to what he calls our Meaningful Mission. His latest book, The Greatness Mindset, drives the necessity of discovery and then making decisions based on our purpose. In my study, this is very helpful. The first 50-pages gives the insight into different functional perspective.

Dr. Daniel Goleman captures for our era the heart habits in Emotional Intelligence. (Bantam, ©1995)

• Self-Awareness,
• Self-Control,
• Self-Motivation,
• Empathy,
• Self-Management.

Watering the Roots means to make choices based upon mindsets and to primarily nurture them with study, reading, thinking, interaction, application of Scripture and prayer. Do that and Holy Spirit will grow produce for the public to notice and for their benefit. Look at Goleman’s list. Which, if any, would be a mindset to produce love? Joy? Peace? Do you feel comfortable with the statement that concentrating on mindsets that are biblical will allow biblical fruit to inevitably grow? Don’t focus on joy. Put your energy into which mindsets will produce joy.  

I am committed to serving my wife. I want to build an environment where she will experience joy. She is sorta OCD on keeping her kitchen counter relatively clean and clear. She has expectations that I will wipe excess peanut butter off the knife. Serving her produces good feelings for both of us. Serving family, friends, associates—empathy and paying attention opens the joy valve.

There are connections between growth mindsets and mental health. What mindset(s) could you focus on that would flow through “the branch” to mitigate anxiety, depression, and lack of clarity? Holy Spirit will grow peace.

“The joy of the Lord is my strength” (Nehemiah 8:10).

I’m currently focusing on the following Roots—that make Growth Mindsets operational. I will “water” and nurture:

• Redemption—How extensive is my personal redemption? Alignment with God’s Life and plan. Healing, Alignment, Deliverance, Controlling my spiritual environment/atmosphere.
• Reason—Purpose, Calling: Who? Why? What? Where?
• Resilience—Experience, Planning, bouncing back.
• Resourcefulness—Mentors, Teachers, Competence, Business, Income streams
• Respectfulness—Life, Ethnic, Minorities, Women, Authority
• Relationships—God, Mate, Family, Friends, Tribe, Mentees.
• Restoration—Rest, Exercise. Attitude, Diet

Seven might be overwhelming.

Mindsets and worldviews determine so much of our lives. Few people examine their own. If we are living for God’s pleasure and glory, self-awareness is healthy and a necessary trek.

©2023 D. Dean Benton

Resources:

• Think Learn Succeed, Dr. Caroline Leaf, ©2018, (Baker Books) Text & Workbook
• Mindset—The New Psychology of Success, Carol S. Dweck, Ph.D—(Ballantine Books, © 2006, 2016)
• Pandemic Population, Dr. Tim Elmore, (Growing Leaders-Poet Gardeners) ©2020
• The Greatness Mindset, Lewis Howes, (Hay House, Inc.) ©2023
• Mind Your Mindset, Michael Hyatt, Megan Hyatt Miller ©2023, (Baker Books)