Sentience

Body, mind and emotions… Is that all that we are? We possess the ability to think and to feel. We experience a range of emotions while responding to our environment; and with each experience, we are able to develop a level of subjectivity, to inform our judgements. The decisions we make about ourselves, help us to determine our feelings and the expectations we have of life; helping us to control our perceptions of what matters to us.

Our emotions can change with our moods. The positivity we feel about the situations we face, can determine our attitudes towards the decisions we need to make. Some people can endure hardship because they recognise and are accepting of the fact that life, isn't always going to be like a box of chocolates. Life perhaps, is something that has to be borne on our shoulders; a burden that we must somehow bear; in some kind of cosmological struggle for identity and purpose.

Others can see life as one opportunity after another, where there are endless possibilities available to those willing to take risks. Our sentience determines our ability to respond to the many different aspects of life, perhaps guided by the characteristics of our psychological make-up such as our creativity, intelligence, sapience, self-awareness or intentionality. Our ability to reason, is indicative of our desire to find within ourselves and our surroundings, a sense of purpose and place within our communities and indeed, the universe itself. Is the human race and the earth, the centre of life as we know it? Or... are we simply, small insignificant beings on an inconspicuous planet, particularly when we compare ourselves to the vastness of the cosmos?

And where does our consciousness fit in? Do we indeed, have one? How do we determine whether a course of action is good for us or indeed, bad for us? Perhaps there is an internal memory bank from our ancestors to which we can measure our responses to. Do we learn to make responses to certain causes, behaviourally, or is there something bigger at work? We know that some actions are bad for us and some are beneficial to us... perhaps we are aware of the inherent dangers associated with risky ventures? Maybe there is after all, an inner ethical or moral centre, which is prevalent to humanity, determining our actions for good, or for bad?

Perhaps we have become so intelligent, that we are able to determine within our own sense of well-being, an implicit trust in our ability to comprehend life. Some might argue that we certainly don't need some external source, such as God, to help us determine our course. Is our ability to reason who we are, understand what we are, or even explain why we exist at all, enough for us to have a sense of purpose? Are we so certain of our intellectual centeredness as a species, that we can comprehend that we stand alone in the universe, except for potential extra terrestrials; living out this ‘one-life’ on a planet that is hurtling at great speed through the fabric of space and time.

Perhaps we can circumvent the subjectivity of life, with all of its mixed feelings and volatile emotions, in favour of an objective truth about the nature of our existence? When we live objectively, we can hold to things which we know are true, despite how we might feel about them. This type of living would be unbiased because truth cannot be ignored on a whim of metaphysical emotion, when we hold to a true pragmatic or naturalistic view of the observed world. If the action or behaviour is observable and repeatable, it can be measured… the information gathered can be analysed and a model for acting or behaving can be formulated from the data. This model then becomes our basis for a hypothesis for how mankind could interact with each other.

What would happen however, if our ability to perceive what is true, had become corrupted in some way? What happens then? If you look at life objectively but when you do, you are filled with uncontrollable emotions that you cannot process rationally... what can you do? If you can rationally determine that certain actions or behaviours are going to cause you problems, yet you cannot break the cycle you find yourself in, how do you cope? In all of us, there are certain thoughts and actions which we need to control whilst there are others which we cannot control, becoming almost compulsive in nature, like driving a steam roller, over everything we have tried to build-up as good in our lives.

Some of our thoughts and actions are learned or are indeed, behavioural in nature and nurture. While other thoughts, emotions and reactions, can be the result of a chemical imbalance or a random, chaotic, brain function; occurring when certain feelings such as anxiety or paranoia arise to trigger them. When either of these conditions do exist, and we are unable to process our emotions or our thoughts, we are led into making impulsive, unexplained or irrational behaviours, where we can often feel out of control, 'like a run-away car with no brakes'.

Indeed, if I was sheltering from a separatist militia group in Ukraine, Africa or Iraq right now, I would have a restless night’s sleep, waking to every sound, and fearful for my very life. With the bombs landing ever closer to where we slept, I would wake each day slightly more frazzled than the day before, until I could take no more and succumb to whatever paranoia best suited my emotional coping mechanism.

We don’t have to be in a war zone to experience such anxiety, as we can be fearful of many things, particularly those areas of our lives where we think we are unsafe, or that the situation is out of our control. Indeed, as we try to hold onto some sense of normality, we can easily feed our own paranoia, seeing threat when there is none. Anxiety disorders are one of many debilitating conditions that we can face within the sanctity of our mind. No matter how many times we might tell ourselves ‘it’s just our nerves,’ the churning in your stomach never seems to leave, causing you to disregard any notion of nobility or intelligence.

It is in moments like these, that your identity is stolen with each anxious thought, as each pang of adrenaline that your body serves up, puts you into a fresh state of ‘flight’. Overwhelming emotions and physical manifestation’s, distort our rational self, by feeding our primeval impulses to run from the perceived danger. We can be so preoccupied by what we think and feel, that we react uncharacteristically to what is going on around us. But what if the perceived danger is not physical but in your mind, shaping your worldview, reinforcing your fears?

There is a classic analogy of this dichotomy of emotions, in the image of the swan swimming on a still lake. This is the image that we want others to have of ourselves, hiding the effort it takes for us to maintain our perception of self, mirrored not by the effortless grace of the swan on the surface of the waters but rather, what goes on underneath. In order to swim serenely across the lake, the feet of the swan are moving furiously under the water. Yet to our eye at least, the swan moves serenely through the water, without any apparent effort. Like the swan, we all carry some hidden pain or possess some kind of inner unease, which demands some degree of emotional expenditure. We might look perfectly at ease on the outside, but behind the façade, our fears remain.

I tend to prefer the idea that one day, all of my inner emotional unrest will be resolved but, for the moment, I push it down below the surface and learn to adapt. There will be a time however, like the explosion of the ‘Ghostbusters’ containment unit, where our emotional capacity is filled-to-bursting and we cannot process any more heartache; we are simply going to blow-up emotionally. Unfortunately, the mess from this fall-out, can leave us in a worse place than when we began. To naïvely push away our irreconcilable emotions and not deal with the cause, is a story we can all add our colours to.

"Developing a spiritual life, perhaps even in God, but most certainly in something bigger than ourselves, increases our psychological awareness of the struggle that goes on deep within us. For the Christian, faith in God is relational in that it is a measure of how we integrate our understanding and experience of God, into our everyday routines."

When we get up in the morning, feeling groggy and sleepy; waking up from our slumber with the shock of the morning and the dawning realisation of the day’s activities beginning to weigh heavily on our minds, we can think of any number or things we must do, rather than focus our attention on what God might want to do with us today. All we can do is groan inwardly at what we may have to endure. Unless of course we know that the day has a special emphasis or that you will be going to an event that lifts our spirits and transforms the mundane day-to-day activity, into an obstacle that has to be endured, in order to attain that special something.

What if we viewed our relationship with God as that special something, rather than the groggy, sleepy relationship we think we have with God? Transforming our mundane life, into an ever broadening sense of opportunity by seeking out more of God’s grace and favour, is something that grows in every Christian as we experience more of his love in our lives. If we lived our lives with an awareness that we possess the power and authority to set people free from sin, heal sickness and free people from spiritual oppression, we may approach life and each other differently. To have faith in God means to believe, to rely on and to trust in his favour towards us so that with confidence, we can accept the things that may at first glance, be insurmountable.

The only problem with this, is that people are unreliable or are untrustworthy in how they deal with their emotions, whereas God isn't. So within ourselves, knowing our own nature, we can learn to distrust our own instincts to do what our emotions are telling us to do, in favour of what we have learned. What we have learned about ourselves and how we think of God, skews our perspectives of the world we exist in, for good or for bad. We can become sceptical of what could happen, even when God has already revealed his plan to prosper us and not to harm us (Jeremiah 29:11).

We can read in the Bible, all that God has achieved for the salvation of humanity through the death of his Son, Jesus, believing he died on the cross for someone else rather than for us. We read of how Jesus healed the sick, made the lame walk, helped the blind see, the deaf hear and those possessed by evil spirits are set free. Yet somehow, we think this was all for another time or season and that we are undeserving of this favour today? But we would be wrong to think that.

We may believe that God heals and may even have experienced healing ourselves. We may also have confidence when praying for others but often we do not always feel sanctioned to see fruit from our efforts. We may find ourselves making excuses for any absence of healing or make suggestions as to why in the natural sense, the healing didn't take place. When we do witness healing, we almost assign the success to some magical power that is unexpected and surprising but this isn't any real kind of real faith.

Faith is expressed in our weakness, rather than our strength. “My grace is all you need. My power works best in weakness.” So now I am glad to boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ can work through me. (2 Corinthians 12: 9, NLT). 


When we think that it is our own prayers or even our own faith in God that heals, we can start to think that we are somehow involved in the healing process and possess some special power ourselves. Perhaps it is the faith of the one being prayed for, that determines the level of success in healing rather than anything that we can do? 

That’s why I take pleasure in my weaknesses, and in the insults, hardships, persecutions, and troubles that I suffer for Christ. For when I am weak, then I am strong. (2 Corinthians 12:10, NLT)

The hardest part of praying for someone is when there is no apparent change in the person’s condition. When you ask the question, ‘Is there any change?’ or when you use the Robby Dawkins technique of getting the person to number the pain before and after, with little or no change, it is too easy to get trapped in the question of why? Sure, the person came forward for prayer and you were emboldened by the spirit to pray. Yet, when no apparent healing occurs, it is awkward. We understand that it is not about their faith or indeed, our faith rather, it has more to do with God’s timing and purposes.

Somehow, praying for a friends bad back or aching knee, seems less risky than some of the more serious illnesses we know about, yet I have friends who have experienced healing from severe medical conditions, often in combination with medical treatment. In my own life, I came through a skin cancer scare with corrective surgery and no other complications. Similarly, I have experienced Gods intervention when I suffered from an infected mastoid cavity in my right ear. I was due to have a third piece of corrective surgery, where the surgeon would cut my right ear off and stick it to my cheek. He would then remove the infected mastoid bone, clean it and apply a skin graft, before stitching it all back together. When I awoke from surgery, the consultant gleefully declared that he hadn't needed to carry out the scheduled surgery, due to all signs of the infection seemingly gone.

My small group had been praying about my condition for a month or so before the operation, laying-on-hands to my infected ear and asking for Gods help in bringing healing but more importantly, to save me from having to endure this procedure. The cynic will always demand specific proof of these medical transformations, even discounting them in favour of accepting that the conditions were not quite what was described. When we look at Mental health issues, healing is perhaps not so easy to quantify or that the process of healing is not seemingly as instantaneous. A friend of mine has been taking medication for paranoid schizophrenia for many years, developing a tick with his neck from the side effects of the drug. The tick/twitch was being treated with Botox. The medical staff were effectively trying to kill the twitching muscle in order to maintain steady head movements.

After a while, the Botox treatment didn't work either. Praying for his condition, I discerned that there was more going on in his character than the physical conditions that caused the tick. Through my friendship with him, I became aware of some of the psychological and emotional strains that he endured. These insights informed my prayer and developed my understanding of what I thought God was doing. It became obvious that these deeper issues were the cause of his tick, rather than the defective neck muscles that were caused by the side effect to his medication. It was also apparent that my friend was not in a position to be able to move beyond the physical condition, casting out of hand, any idea that there may be a psychological connection to his problem and so, he hasn't been healed...yet!

How might you feel if you had become physically and emotionally exhausted from the exertion of battling the demons in your own head? What if you grew to realise that the happiness you derived from life, was somehow related to the way you feel about yourself and yet, there seemed to be nothing that you can do about the negativity you feel? In this emotional state, reason and logic are totally overridden by irrational thoughts and seemingly uncontrollable emotions? Locked into a cycle of never being good enough or worthy enough to expect happiness, we prefer instead to feel as though you must always be trying harder, being better organised, being better at meeting people’s needs… life becomes a must try harder ‘to-do list’, which can never truly be accomplished.

This can suck the joy right out of living our lives to the full, when we become so blinkered by our to-do lists that we forget to live. Time too… where does that go? I am so busy with work, family and church that social time can be a little awkward as I don’t have time for it. Out of the house at 7.15am for a 50min commute, stuck inside all day, eating lunch on the go and finally getting in the car at 5.45pm for the 12 mile journey home that takes 70 minutes to commute. Saturday morning is football with my son before chores around the house, Mum and Dad’s taxi service in the evening, church on Sunday from 9.00am to 1.30pm, before preparation for work in the afternoon, tea and bed. Gosh, life can be so routine, so grey. It’s no wonder people develop the blues or sadly, slip into depression when life gets on-top-of-us. I am not trying to sound flippant here. Life can be hard, with little reward.

Without God as a reference to our lives, alone in our own sense of self, feeling as though we are fighting a battle by ourselves, it is up to us to find within ourselves, the source of our inner turmoil. Counsellors can help us talk through our emotions in order for us to learn to understand who we are and why we act as we do. Medication can be used to balance the neural pathways which cause a variety of conditions that affect our sense of peace… diazepam, venlafaxine and pregabalin, being some of the drugs that I am familiar with, given to treat the effects of depression and anxiety.

It is thought that antidepressants work by increasing the levels of a group of chemicals in the brain called neurotransmitters. Certain neurotransmitters, such as serotonin and noradrenaline, can improve mood and emotion, although this process is not fully understood. Increasing levels of neurotransmitters can also disrupt pain signals sent by nerves, which may explain why some antidepressants can help relieve long-term pain. While antidepressants can help treat the symptoms of depression, they do not always address its causes. This is why they are usually used in combination with therapy to treat more severe depression or other mental health conditions caused by emotional distress.

The UK now has the seventh highest prescribing rate for antidepressants in the Western world, with around four million Britons taking them each year - twice as many as a decade ago.The new statistics from the Health and Social Care Information Center, show NHS spending on the drugs rose by 33.6 per cent last year, to £282 million. Mental health charities said they were concerned that people suffering from depression were being given drugs because other help – such as counselling, which was sometimes more appropriate – was not available. (The Telegraph, 9th July, 2014)

For our emotional well-being, it is important to understand the things that drive our ambition, the inhibitions we experience, and the journey that we have walked, all contribute to how we feel. The naturalist would make the claim that our response to life is governed by our genetic heritage, which promotes its own survival and replication. In other words, genes that do well, spread through a population because they, in a sense, want to further their own chances of survival. 

"Genes of course, do not have any thoughts, feelings or desires, conscious or unconscious, so we should rephrase this: successful genes operate as if they are self-interested entities, but even this term suggests that genes in and of themselves, have a sense of purpose outside of the control of the mind. We could in fact characterize people as organic machines, created to enhance the chances of the genes’ successful transfer to the next generation."

But how does the gene mutate in the human body? How does our brain remember a beneficial action before using a protein marker to dope our genes? How does the new gene filter into the genetic material of the sperm or egg within a person’s reproductive cycle? How do the proteins encode the DNA of our genetic material as we live and breathe in the now, in order to influence our offspring? Would my children be somehow different, if I had waited for my genome mutation to be at its peak; to have them later in life? Perhaps this line of questioning reveals my lack of education when it comes to understanding the science? Probably it does, I don’t know.

What my questions do reveal, is that I feel a bit incredulous when we assign rational, emotive, human traits to genetic material. Similar to the psychiatrist who tries to treat mental health illness with antidepressants which alter the neurotransmitters in the brain, the naturalist believes that our bodies condition themselves for a more successful person in the next generation. But what about my life now? What went wrong…? I mean surely, we would all be the equivalent of Hollywood A-Lister’s with great teeth by now, if our genes were mutating in order to improve our life chances? Sadly, our genes tend to mutate for the worst of reasons… like a cancer reminding us of our own mortality.

None of these questions bring comfort to those riddled with infection, battling disease, battling cancer, living in conflict zones, or enslaved into prostitution. Are the less fortunate inclined to become victims of consequence due to their genetic ancestry? I don’t think so... men do these things. Do we really suffer life’s fate as some believe, from some obscure sense of the survival of the fittest, fought via social engineering, poverty or genocide? There is however, only one true cause of our misfortune… the human condition itself.

Why would a Holy God full of goodness, allow so much evil and suffering in the world? Surely in a moment, he can put all things right? 

God exist out of time, living beyond our reality. He knows our future and our past as though it is only one moment in our understanding of time, so why doesn't he step in and help? Perhaps this is because there is a human quality within each of us that God honours, our freewill. Humanity is Gods’ creation but unlike the angels and the heavenly host, we possess the quality of self-determination, which they do not. The angels obediently do God’s will… they are compelled to serve God because they were created to do so. Humans were created for a whole different purpose because we were birthed within the relationship between the Father and the Son.

Humanity was created to honour God in his creation, as it's crowning glory; to worship God as creator while crediting him with that accolade by the way we choose to live out our lives as caretakers of the planet. With the planet in our custody, we were led astray by a corrupt angel, whom we refer to as Satan or the devil. His purpose was to attempt to tear down God and his creation. So, if in the holiest place we know to exist, heaven, God’s sovereignty and grace could be challenged by a fallen angel, how much more so here on the earth... humanity with his ability to self determine his choices, can oppose God? The disease of rebellion that Satan birthed in Adam and Eve, leads to death; for us to question God himself, reveals the nature of man. Through the Holy Spirit, God is alive within each one of us, until he completes his rescue plan when Jesus returns to the earth. He will come not as a child, but as a Redeemer King.

"So we are left with a choice. Do we go the way of the world in its corruption, disease, warfare, inequality, religion..? We could completely reject God as sovereign because of our emotional pain and the suffering we directly or indirectly experience. However, these are not God’s ways; this is the way of humanity, corrupted by Satan’s ways. It is humanity that choses to go to war; inequality and persecution can even incite war from the most peaceful of people hoping for a better life – for freedom; the protection of our homes and the need for peaceful co-existence can either stoke-up war by reinforcing our artificial national borders or we can use the threat of war to create an uneasy calm."

You may right now, be in the middle of immense emotional pain through the death of a loved one or through the trauma of battling a life ‘robbing’ illness, whether it be your physical or your mental health. You may be saying to yourself, ‘I don’t care that God has a plan for me and might be trying to teach me something about life...' You may be dis-interested in God revealing himself to you, through some fresh insight about his nature because 'life right now sucks…’ let me tell you, GOD KNOWS. He is right in there, letting you choose to either cling on by your fingertips for some glimmer of hope or to lose all hope. You might not feel him right now in the midst of your pain but he is routing for you. The Psalms are full of men and women of God, lamenting in their hearts, the situations that they were facing, grief stricken and broken, calling out: ‘Where are you God?’ 

If you believe that this one life really is it… then what can console you? Can comfort be found when we exercise faith by placing our trust in him? Of course it can. Jesus was flogged to the brink of death… carried his own cross to his own crucifixion, and was nailed through his hands and feet, whilst being publicly humiliated and spat upon. Whatever it is that you are going through right now, God has been there… LOVE WINS. Jesus is the only hope we have for release from our current condition because he was raised from the dead. Our bodies may be ravished by cancer, ME, or Alzheimer’s but GOD WINS. We are born again through our belief in the Son, Jesus.

At the beginning of our civilisation, our bodies would have been genetically pure and free from disease yet today, genetic defects, infertility and the threat of disease, dominate modern lives. Let us stop using the rather tired argument that it is God’s fault that these things happen. Let’s try to explore this sentiment by using a less emotive topic as an illustration. It was reported in the UK, that up to 8 in 10 supermarket chickens contain bugs prevalent to the causes of food poisoning (the Guardian, 27^th Nov 14). Our observation of this fact would reveal that we as a people, elect a government to control farming methods and protect public health, yet we fail to bring them to account when malpractice arises in their role of monitoring the sale of goods for human consumption.

If we are disinterested in this problem or don’t care either way, you display apathy where diligence is required. We depend on food hygiene standards for the quality of our food, our health and well-being, as well as our mortality. Many die each year from food poisoning. Similarly, we can have the same attitude towards God. We know that there is a benchmark by which we should live, just as the supermarkets know what their responsibilities are to the consumer. Yet like the procedures the supermarkets have forgotten to enforce, we too have become corrupted in some way. We choose to ignore that knowing feeling, deep down inside, which warns us of danger, hoping it might sort itself out. We must, therefore, be careful when we try to blame God for his apparent inaction during the major traumas occurring around the world and in our own lives, if we posses this kind of attitude. So tell me, why is that?

We could agree with the independent scientists, that the government should be doing more by conducting more regular and more robust procedures to reduce the number of people who fall ill after handling and/or consuming the contaminated chicken. Just as we might ask God to do more. When the church tells society that changing the law of the land would lead to further complications later, it is ignored or rebuffed as prejudiced or intolerant at best, so how do we expect supermarkets to work by the rules? 


We all want to do our own thing. We may take the position that as we had not become ill, we do not really care about this issue; you might say, "I’m vegetarian, serves you right for mistreating animals!" Or we may be resigned to the fact these ‘kind-of-things’ will happen, feeling powerless to do anything about it. Some may be compelled to campaign against the industry for better standards, while others will feel empowered to gain the necessary skills needed to work in the food safety sector for the benefit of all, as a public servant.

So what about God? Has he done anything? 

Well, somebody ill somewhere in the UK, will have asked for prayer over an upset stomach! Seriously though, God has put his plan in place. He has actively intervened in the affairs of humanity through his son, Jesus. Before you dismiss this completely, Jesus’ actions would have labelled him today as a religious and political activist, even if you do not believe in his divinity. He was a radical. He challenged the fabric of Jewish society and told his disciples to go out into all the world to tell his story to everyone else who would listen. It wasn't a coincidence that Jesus arrived in Jerusalem at the height of the Roman Empire, where his story could be spread to all corners of the globe.

Jesus’ story is one of transformation and renewal. Tired with the religious trickery practised by men, distracting people from God through the inequality and division it created, God personally calls out to each of us, through Jesus, to come home to him. When we align our will to his, whilst recognising our disobedient nature, we willing cast aside our sinful nature, in favour of his great love and mercy. As we are transformed by the renewal of our hearts and minds, we can begin to understand Gods great compassion for his creation, even in its suffering. We become part of Gods plan to rescue the world from itself, and are prepared through the inspiration of the Holt Spirit of God, to stand up and take our place.

So what now? I've been captivated by Paolo Nutini’s song, ‘Lead Sky’ in recent days. It goes like this…

We are proud individuals, living for the city.
But the flames, couldn't go,  much higher
We find God and religions, to paint us with salvation.

But no one, no nobody, can give you the power.

To rise, over love, over hate
Through this iron sky that's fast becoming our mind
Over fear and into freedom

Oh, that's life, that’s dripping down the walls
Of a dream that cannot breathe, in this harsh reality
Mass confusion. spoon fed to the blind
                                             Serves now to define, our cold society

From which we'll rise, over love, over hate

Through this iron sky that's fast becoming our mind

Over fear and into freedom

You've just got to hold on

You've just got to hold on 

[Charlie Chaplin's speech from The Great Dictator]

“To those who can hear me, I say - do not despair. The misery that is now upon us is but the passing of greed - the bitterness of men who fear the way of human progress. The hate of men will pass, and dictators die, and the power they took from the people will return to the people. And so long as men die, liberty will never perish... Don't give yourselves to these unnatural men - machine men with machine minds and machine hearts! You are not machines! You are not cattle..! You are men! You, the people, have the power to make this life free and beautiful, to make this life a wonderful adventure.... let us use that power - let us all unite.” 

And we'll rise, over love, over hate

Through this iron sky that's fast becoming our mind

Over fear and into freedom

From which we'll rise, over love, over hate

Through this iron sky that's fast becoming our mind

Over fear and into freedom, freedom, freedom

Don’t you just long deep down for the freedom he sings of? We live in a society that has become hardened by the pain of life, broken yet aware in the back of our mind that Gods salvation is at hand. If we could learn to love each other, we would be empowered to rise up over hate, over fear and learn to show more compassion. We might find a glimmer of hope that banishes the inequality we see all around us. When we witness those in power exerting their assumed authority over the will of people, don’t you just cry out? I know God does. That's why Jesus came.

We have that power within us to rise up, to love, to care, to fight for freedom. These are God given qualities that he bestows on the hearts of humanity so it can endure. God proved himself to us, not that he needed to do so, by choosing to be born into our world and to become as vulnerable as we were, as a child in a manger, in a stable in the corner of Bethlehem. Born into the world, Jesus experienced all that we feel and more. He felt the desperation of the widow, the orphan, the poor, the sick… they demanded his attention and sought his compassion, pressing in on him from every side, until he was brutally murdered. 


This is the God of Christianity that I believe in. He was willing to suffer death to save us because it is HUMANITY that is deserving of death, not God. Jesus' sacrifice for my life is the reason why through every trial and every hardship, I know that despite what I might be feeling, GOD IS WITH US. Give your heart to him this Christmas, it will change your life.