Foreword

AN IDEA THAT DEEPLY GRIEVES ME is that some people perceive God’s interaction with people as near-scoldings about our faults. It’s as if God is relentlessly focused on how we’re not measuring up to a standard of always doing things good Christians are supposed to do. The result is that people experience God as a demeaning “Eternal Nag,” though they would never put it that way, much less say that aloud. The Christian life, at bottom, becomes one of constant striving and inevitable failure.

Ken Baugh is determined not to let this lie gain more momentum! He insists that soul restoration and mind reorientation result in unhindered abundance. Following Jesus into that good and flourishing life is a relational process that fills our loneliness. Continual conversation with God makes our life so adventurous that watching TV seems boring.

The transformation of our souls is God’s creative project. And God is good at it—he progressively changes every dimension of our persons: mind, emotions, will, body, social context, and soul. Ken wisely yet gently guides us into discipleship of the mind. I say “gently” because he understands that God woos us into goodness. For example, Ken shares the “accidental memorization” method of learning Scripture by heart. That is how spiritual practices work. At their best, they are organic, not forced. God invites us into a Scripture passage, and we resonate so much with it that we begin to live and breathe it. Then, committing it to memory is not taxing but as luscious as eating a candy bar.

Another misconception many people have is that this growth process pits the mind and emotions against each other, as if the mind has to corner the emotions and whip them into shape. But in truth, these two aspects work together so closely that they cannot be separated. What I choose to think about gently pulls my emotions along. What I feel can lead me to talk to God about possible solutions. As I consider what I’m grateful for in this present moment (thinking), I find my face grinning (body), and in the next moment, my mood is lifted (feeling). This is not closing our eyes to facts but opening them. For gratitude is living in reality—noticing the good things happening around us that this fragmented world trains us to overlook. This marriage of mind and emotions helps us experience God’s love (a theme which Ken often comes back to) as a whole-brain experience—objective and intuitive, thinking and feeling.

Such energetic discipleship of the mind leads to oneness with God. We must never be fixed on how we’re doing with spiritual practices or our character transformation. Those are crucial issues, to be sure, but the focus of attention in spiritual formation is not on us; the focus of attention is on God and what the devotional masters called “union with God.” We set our minds on constant companionship with God—“God with us”—and experience the oneness with God that the apostle John loved to write about (John 1:1-2; 5:17, 23; 8:58; 14:9, 23; 16:15; 17:10, 21). We experience that need-fulfilling oneness in unhindered abundance as we intermingle our thoughts with the thoughts of God.

May your mind find great joy and adventure in doing so!

Jan Johnson

author of When the Soul Listens