Some say a mind is a dangerous thing to waste.
     The scriptures say that the mind is a dangerous thing, period. And my own experience confirms it.
     Like the man who adopts a cuddly pet lion cub that years later chews up his expensive sofa and sends him to the hospital with multiple lacerations, I was "shocked, shocked" to find out that my mind has never really been my buddy. It's a beast. Always has been and always will be.
     Too bad, because it had such great promise.
     Before I became a believer in 1972, I lived with the fantasy that I was intelligent. Before I graduated from high school, I was forced to choose between prison and military service, and eventually joined a military "intelligence" unit. My guiding life principle was "Rules are for when brains run out." And that continued to influence me later in business and politics.
     But in these several careers, I had the opportunity to meet many of the world's most powerful and influential people. I realized that they were all living in the same fantasy world that I inhabited. It was all air. Eventually I came to see that every kind of human effort is empty, vain and futile.
     So, when my brains finally did "run out," by God's grace I was able to see what had been going on in there all those years, and it wasn't pretty.
     In Ezekiel chapter 8, the prophet gives a good description of the inner workings of the human mind. God takes him in a vision to the entrance of the Temple where an idol has been erected. God shows him a hole in the wall nearby and orders him to dig. As he digs, the hole becomes a door.
     "Go in," God tells him, "and behold the wicked abominations that they do there." As Ezekiel enters, he is astonished.
     "Behold every form of creeping things and abominable beasts, and all the idols of the house of Israel, portrayed upon the wall round about."
     What's more, the room was crowded with worshippers, including "70 men of the ancients of the house of Israel, and in the midst of them stood Jaazaniah the son of Shaphan, with every man his censor in his hand; and a thick cloud of incense went up."
     As always, God gives both a vision and an explanation.
     "Son of man," He told Ezekiel, "hast thou seen what the ancients of the house of Israel do in the dark, every man in the chambers of his imagery? For they say 'The Lord seeth us not; the Lord has forsaken the earth.'"
     There is no place in the historical Temple corresponding to this scene. Instead, it is a picture of what goes on constantly within the mind—the "chambers of imagery"—of every human being.
     The symbolism becomes clear. From other scriptural references we know that your body is the Temple; the smoke constantly rising from the incense refers to prayers or thoughts; the 70 elders are the different value systems and sources of worldly wisdom we turn to for guidance; the image of jealousy is analagous to "the man of sin, the son of perdition" in II Thessalonians 2:3-4 who "as God sits in the temple of God showing himself that he is God."
     In other words, it's me. Self.
     And who is Jaazaniah, the guy coordinating all the false worship?
     It's my mind.
     No wonder Jesus was crucified on Golgotha, which means the "place of the skull." He's crucified afresh through our mental activities every single day.
     A few years back I was invited to speak to the national convention for MENSA. Don't ask me why. Membership is limited to those in the top 2% of IQ ranking. You'd think they could distinguish a qualified speaker from someone like me.
     Most of the MENSA audience considered themselves atheists or at least agnostics. So did I, before I became a believer, I told them.
     I proposed that they were all actually very religious, and were in fact worshipping very stupid gods—themselves.
     I asked them to consider some evidence:
      All men tithe. If you consider that the first 10 per cent of your income goes for what you most highly value (your chief god) whether it's your appearance, your family, an education, pleasure or entertainment.
      All men pray. The constant mind-talk continues even in our sleep, focused on whatever we define as our chief god, our most highly valued concern, or fear or goal.
      All men worship. We breathe life into the lifeless idol that we created by giving it importance. This is our worship, but we forget that it's only air.
      All men sacrifice. We sacrifice to what we worship. And if someone dares to defile our sacred value system or idea, we will kill them.
      All men have rituals and liturgy. These are the activities directed by our value systems, whatever they are.
      All men have a sense of sin. Everyone feels guilt when falling short of even their own standards.
      All men recognize and follow laws. Even sociopaths have a conscience they either defy or choose to ignore. We are accused or excused, blamed or justified by that board of elders that is always in session in our minds.
     Surpisingly, the MENSA crowd accepted my premise and even appreciated my making fun of their "stupid gods." But if they reflected on it, they probably were as disturbed as I was.
     Thankfully, there's a way out.
     Even though "other lords besides thee have had dominion over us" (see Isaiah 26), in repentance, we can agree with God that these idols are dead. "They are deceased, they shall not rise; therefore hast thou visited and destroyed them, and made all their memory to perish."

Ole's morning bible study is available here.