Dr. Alan Weissenbacher: When you read Scripture, you’re strengthening that part of your brain. And the parts that are the strongest are the parts that fire automatically. And so if you set your brain up that way through your daily exercise, whenever something comes at you during the day, that is the direction your brain is going to want to go. 

Transform Your Mindset and Elevate Your Outlook: Dr. Alan Weissenbacher & Carolyn Weber – Episode #421

Narrator: Welcome to the Jesus Calling Podcast. This week, we have the privilege of hearing from Dr. Alan Weissenbacher, the managing editor of the journal Theology and Science and a teaching pastor in Berkeley, California. Deriving from his work with those who struggle with addiction, he illustrates how we can harness the power of neuroscience to change our habits, emphasizing the importance of replacing negative thoughts with positive ones, and how our focus can reshape our brain’s pathways, which includes the disciplines of prayer and studying Scripture.

Later in the episode, we’ll hear from Carolyn Weber, an acclaimed author, speaker, and professor who experienced a profound spiritual awakening during her time at Oxford University. Initially an agnostic, Carolyn’s encounters with diverse Christian communities and her thorough reading of the Bible led her to embrace Christianity. Her memoir and its subsequent film adaptation chronicle her journey from skepticism to faith.

Let’s begin with Dr. Weissenbacher’s story.

Dr. Alan Weissenbacher: My name is Dr. Alan Weissenbacher. I worked many years as a pastor to homeless addicts through the Denver Rescue Mission. Now, I am the managing editor of the academic journal Theology and Science, the teaching pastor at a Humboldt Church plant in Berkeley, California, and I speak on how to improve people’s spiritual lives and control their thoughts based upon how God designed the brain to learn and grow. 

I got involved with the Denver Rescue Mission because God closed all other doors. I never pictured myself doing that sort of ministry to homeless addicts, but God opened that door wide and was very clear that that is where He wanted me to go. We would take them off the streets of Denver, move them an hour north to a farm setting where they would live and work for up to a year, receiving spiritual training, job training, counseling. And it was an intense but rewarding job. 

If I didn’t have those years at the Denver Rescue Mission, I wouldn’t have been inspired to research the brain and how God designed that brain to learn and grow. And then by knowing that, how I could improve rehabilitation programs and help people improve their spiritual lives in the church as a whole. 

“If I didn’t have those years at the Denver Rescue Mission, I wouldn’t have been inspired to research the brain and how God designed that brain to learn and grow. And then by knowing that, how I could improve rehabilitation programs and help people improve their spiritual lives in the church as a whole.” – Dr. Alan Weissenbacher 

Science, Brain Health, and Faith 

How can you be transformed by the renewing of your mind? How can you take every thought captive? Are you imagining good things? Are you imagining doing the right things? Are you imagining responding correctly, as Jesus would, when temptation faces you?

That changes your brain so that when those situations happen, when the curveball gets thrown at you, you find yourself in a tough situation, your brain will take the pathway that you trained in your imagination. Hopefully it is the good one. 

I tell people—and we probably all have experienced this—willpower doesn’t work. And there’s a reason for that, and it’s biological. Because if you’re telling yourself, Don’t be anxious, if you’re telling yourself, Don’t be angry, or, Don’t use alcohol, or, Don’t eat that entire bag of peanut M&Ms… what are you thinking about? The anger, the anxiety, the alcohol, or the unhealthy food. And it is actually strengthening those pathways in your brain. And it makes it harder on yourself because you’re strengthening the pathways you don’t want.  

In bringing together science and brain health with the Bible and ministry, that has really deepened and enriched my own spiritual life.  

Replacing unhealthy thoughts with healthy ones impacts the brain’s structure and function. Replace the problem thoughts with good ones, turning yourself in that direction. And then by focusing on the healthy things, you are training those paths in your brain. So when life throws you a curveball, your brain is going to take those instead of the negative ones. As stated in Philippians 4:8, you need to think of what is noble, what is right, what is pure, what is lovely. 

“Replacing unhealthy thoughts with healthy ones impacts the brain’s structure and function. Replace the problem thoughts with good ones, turning yourself in that direction.” – Dr. Alan Weissenbacher 

Strengthening Your Brain’s Pathways With Prayer

Your brain is constantly learning. It is constantly growing. It is constantly changing at a physical level. New neurons are always being produced, no matter how old you are.

Prayer can influence the structure of your brain and how the brain is formed. A prayer life can help strengthen the good pathways like a muscle. You want to strengthen the good neurons, the good paths. And through prayer and focusing on the things of the Lord, you are strengthening those pathways.  

When a new neuron is made in your brain, it goes to the places of the most activity, and you’d much rather it go to the place that is focusing on the things of the Lord, and finding that active and joining in and strengthening it like that much more than it going to other areas and strengthening those that might be negative. 

Prayer, in the past, was actually stressful for me. I’d finish praying and I’d be more stressed after praying than before. It’s like, This doesn’t seem right. I mean, I’d still pray because that’s what God commands. But it was a stressful process.  

And then I realized the problem was because I was praying, focusing on the problems. By focusing on the problem when I pray, Lord, help me be less anxious, or, Lord, help me overcome this problem. Lord, do not let me be angry about this, I was focusing on the problem, focusing on the anger. 

Instead of praying backward, I should be praying forward. Don’t pray to the problem. Pray to get the solution. So instead of saying, “Lord, don’t let me be angry,” [you pray] “Lord, help me be a person of peace,” and focusing on the peace instead. 

“Don’t pray to the problem. Pray to get the solution.” – Dr. Alan Weissenbacher 

By changing your focus, your brain actually begins to change in that direction, and you begin to have more of that daily faith, that trust in the solution, because you’ve actually physically changed your brain to grow those pathways. 

And the devotions of Jesus Calling are a great way to do that, to have your focus orient toward the Lord and the various things God has for you. Because that changes your brain.  

Jesus Listens, December 18th: 

All-wise God,

You have been teaching me that understanding will never bring me Peace. 

Your Word instructs me to trust in You with all my heart instead of relying on my own understanding. This verse challenges me every day of my life.

I’m thankful that Your Peace is not an elusive goal, hidden at the center of a complicated maze. Because I belong to You, I’m already enveloped in the Peace that is inherent in Your Presence. The more I look to You, Jesus, the more of Your precious Peace You give me.

In Your trustworthy Name, Jesus, 

Amen

It’s not too hard to have faith in Jesus for salvation. But it is a lot harder to have that daily faith in God’s promises, God’s love, and God’s faithfulness. By daily reminding ourselves of God’s love, God’s faithfulness, and God’s promises, that strengthens our ability to go through the day in confidence, to go through the day in faith, to go through the day rejoicing and confident and being able to show God’s love and presence to others. 

Narrator: To learn more about Dr. Weissenbacher’s work, please visit www.brainchangeprogram.com, and be sure to check out his book, The Brain Change Program: 6 Steps to Renew Your Mind and Transform Your Life, at your favorite retailer.  

Stay tuned to Carolyn Weber’s story after a brief message.

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Our next guest is Carolyn Weber, an accomplished author, speaker, and professor with a deep passion for literature and how we live at the intersection of faith and intellect. Carolyn shares how her academic journey took her to Oxford University, where her initial skepticism towards Christianity gradually transformed into a profound spiritual awakening. 

Carolyn Weber: I am Carolyn Weber, and I’m a wife and a mother of four, a girl and three boys, and a professor, primarily of literature. That’s my great love. And [I’m an] author and speaker on the intersection of faith and literature.  

I grew up in, essentially, a loosely Catholic home. That’s how I would have defined it, a lot like many other homes too, though, in North America. It’s sort of a mid-sized town, went to a mid-sized school, drove a midsize car, and I had very loving parents. But they did go through a difficult time and ended up separating and divorcing. And so I had this sort of loosely European Catholic context growing up from my grandparents for the first few years of my life. But when they passed away, that sort of faded away as well. 

And I ended up, probably by high school, defining myself as agnostic. And what I meant by that was I couldn’t disprove God, but didn’t really believe in God, or perhaps in a God that cared or was present. But yet, I had this tugging, longing desire, I think, like we all do in our hearts. 

My relationship with my father became more and more complicated. My father ended up losing his business. He was charged with fraud after having been a self-made businessman and quite successful, and fell out of contact a lot with our family and was in and out of my life. And oftentimes when he was, it was fairly unpredictable. He could be violent or mentally unwell or very sweet. I just never knew. So in a way, I didn’t realize how much that template of my earthly father influenced any concept of a heavenly one.

“In a way, I didn’t realize how much that template of my earthly father influenced any concept of a heavenly one.” – Carolyn Weber

After about age ten, twelve, reading became a place of solace and escape for me, as well as joy and comfort, but also just loved my studies and really wanted from a young age to be a teacher. And so I believed I could pull myself up by my bootstraps and accomplish anything through hard work and focus. We were quite poor by North American standards. And so I just worked a lot of jobs and helped support my family.

I received scholarships to study at Oxford, England for my graduate work. When I left for Oxford, I would have just defined my family as loving enough to get by, but broken enough not to deserve God’s attention, and that I was going to go out on this great adventure and be self-sufficient and do everything on my own with no need of God. Really no concept of a personal Jesus or Christ or a relationship with that kind of figure at all. And that’s how I arrived for my graduate studies. 

A Skeptic’s View of Faith

For all of the ways that I thought of myself as self-sufficient and that I didn’t need a god, I didn’t need a father, running underneath all of that, I would have traded everything really for a deep and beautiful relationship with my father. 

I think that those earlier life experiences in which I had felt very cherished and loved—but that the rug had been pulled out from under me—shaped my earlier initial views of faith in that it was very difficult to trust anyone but myself. I think sometimes we don’t want to admit the things that hurt the most. 

“I think that those earlier life experiences in which I had felt very cherished and loved—but that the rug had been pulled out from under me—shaped my earlier initial views of faith in that it was very difficult to trust anyone but myself. I think sometimes we don’t want to admit the things that hurt the most.” – Carolyn Weber 

I very much believed that faith and intellect had to be opposites, that they couldn’t be compatible at all. At the time, most of my concepts in sort of the mainstream media culture of Jesus was either a big-haired TV evangelist who was taking your money, or people that believed in this sort of clockwork thing a bit like The Wizard of Oz, you know? You can walk along this golden path, and at the end, it’s just a sleight of hand trick. How could people be so delusional as to believe in that, and to put their time in that? 

When I arrived at Oxford University, I was a Commonwealth scholar, so I was studying with people from all over the world. It was incredibly cosmopolitan. And particularly because of the Commonwealth countries, I met Christians from all walks of life and all continents and all countries, and they all believed essentially in the same Jesus, which was also eye-opening and fascinating. And then I began to realize… I thought, Okay, I guess I’m just going to read the Bible for myself, because I hadn’t really read it. I thought, I’ll just read it from cover to cover. I only knew bits and pieces culturally speaking, and thought, Well, I can’t disprove anything, and I can’t argue against people if I don’t really help to point out to them what lunacy this is if I don’t actually know the material for myself. 

I began with Genesis because the beginning is always a great place to start. And I remember finishing Genesis and thinking, This book entirely makes sense. This explains our hearts. This explains the fallen world. The question in the Garden of Eden is really the question of discernment. We have so much information in our world but we have very little wisdom. And the question of just because you can do something, should you do it, at the heart of the Garden of Eden… what is really the nature of obedience, what is really wisdom? What is really accountability and self-reflection and repentance and trust? All those huge themes are at the center of what it means to be human. And they hit deeply for me, and they made sense of the world. 

And I began to realize, as I continued to read, the individual stories within the Bible that are so powerful and speak to various facets of ourselves and speak of different people we know and different parts of who we are within this larger overall story of redemption… in which all of these little stories fit my own included, and have purpose and meaning. It was mind blowing. It was the most phenomenal piece of creative nonfiction I had ever read, and all the more compelling because you couldn’t make this stuff up. And very compelling because Christianity was coherent. And I began to realize that faith and intellect are not opposites. They’re not incompatible. 

“I began to realize that faith and intellect are not opposites. They’re not incompatible.” – Carolyn Weber 

I was not prepared for that in the Bible. I wasn’t prepared. They call it this Holy Bible and this Holy Scripture and Living Word. All that stuff sounds so weird when you’re not a Christian. It sounds so random and bizarre, but you read these stories and you’re like, “Wow, there is so much going on under here that is life-giving, and it’s always life-giving when you’re in the midst of it, reading it, going back to it, and it stays planted in you and it’s the story to which all the other stories point.” 

Our souls are restless, our hearts are restless, until they find their home in God, and I identified with that longing. I haven’t met anyone who hasn’t had longing, and that double edged-ness to wanting, desiring something, and lacking something. And that’s always kind of where we’re living in this life, between those two tensions, and where is that pointing us to? A purpose for which we were made… and that’s what we long for.

“Our souls are restless, our hearts are restless, until they find their home in God, and I identified with that longing.” – Carolyn Weber

Carolyn’s Story Becomes a Movie

After I left Oxford and got married and was teaching in the States, I wanted to be able to share with Christian readers or people of faith the questions that people from outside of that realm have, how it might seem alien to them or confusing to them. How can we keep that in mind? But also to those who were seeking or longing, that they would be able to perhaps resonate with something in those pages as well, but never anticipating it really going to a larger audience.

Finally, just so many people had said to me, “Why don’t you just write this story out?” I never, ever anticipated writing a memoir or having a memoir become a film at all. It ended up winning a very large award in Canada, which was a surprise, but also amazing because it opened all these doors. There had been queries here and there over a few years of it being made into a film. I was very nervous about that. I really wanted the integrity of the project to be kept in terms of honoring God and keeping that part of the story. 

And then my agent contacted me and said that there was a screenplay writer and a director that he just thought really would understand the project and had a lot of personal integrity. And so Ryan Whitaker reached out to me, I was in a grocery store with all my kids trapped in a cart trying to do the groceries, and I took this call. And we ended up talking for quite some time through the noise and the aisles and everything, while my boys were wrestling in this cart. And I was immediately impressed by his vision, his heart for God, his own creativity, his own gentle spirit. I had no idea at the time who he was, his parents are Michael W. Smith and Debbie Smith. I didn’t grow up with Christian music. I didn’t know any of that. And as a kindred spirit in so many ways, I felt safe with him. And we ended up agreeing to do the screenplay together. He acquired the rights for the film. I think he did a really beautiful job adapting it for the screen. The music is beautiful, and he wanted it to invite unbelievers to the table who were questioning the faith or maybe not aware, and not be scared off. So it was really a powerful project. And I felt that he had his finger on the pulse of what I wanted to most keep in it, that it would invite all sorts of people to the table in a gentle way about who our God is and the questions that really matter.  

Before Knowing God, and After

Regardless of where we’re at or what we’re doing in our lives, or what we’re struggling with, He sees each of us, and He’s a Father who cares with steadfast love and faithfulness. And we are part of that great and beautiful story that all the other stories point to, our own included, even in the face of great suffering, loss, or grief. And yet, God’s goodness is still so clear. His love for us, it just endures. And that’s still incredibly mind-blowing and soul-filling. 

“His love for us, it just endures. And that’s still incredibly mind-blowing and soul-filling.” – Carolyn Weber 

I didn’t grow up with spiritual disciplines or even saying grace before meals. When people say, you know, to be in your Bible every day, to be in Scripture every day, those things sometimes do sound trite, or they do sound weary, or you think, That’s the person who does a devotional first thing in the morning. How annoying is that? You know, it’s like people working out. And you really think, Okay, really? But you realize that it builds something in you, it builds this connection in you. And it’s something I now crave and love, my time alone with the Lord. 

I know what it’s like to have Him, to know Him myself. He was always there. It’s me who He asks where you were, not where God is. That’s the other question in Genesis. He didn’t go anywhere. We did. It has become really profoundly important for me to try and cultivate every day. 

I picked up a copy of Jesus Calling just randomly at first.I heard a bit about it here and there. It sat on my shelf for a little bit because I had four children under six. And morning devotionals were kind of depending upon whether or not I got up ahead of them or whether I had enough coffee or what was going on. And I actually, one day, read her introduction, and I was so moved by it because it was probably about ten years ago, we had moved to Canada, and I’d had this last baby, and I ended up having a very, very complicated illness that I still will have repercussions for the rest of my life, but it involved chronic pain. I was working with doctors. I was spitting up blood and in and out of the hospital and in immense pain and was trying to care for these little children. And I was losing my father. I was trying to take care of my mom, and we were dealing with significant trauma in our family from some other things that had happened. And it was a perfect storm. I wouldn’t even say threadbare. There were no threads left, it was just bare, and just reading the introduction where she talked about her own situation, her own illness, what she was facing, what drew her to be in God’s presence, and to hear His voice in this way, I must have reread that dozens of times before I even read an entry. And it gave me such hope and peace that she would reach out to her Savior in that situation, but then also that she would take this effort to listen. And it was also tied to so much of the spiritual direction I was starting to learn too, of listening to God’s voice, being present, being without judgment, without earning that. Just fully handing over ourselves, even when we have nothing, we feel, to hand over. And so I read it, quite literally, religiously for several years. Day in and day out, that was my only devotional. And I credit it with being probably one of the most important things that have gotten me through that incredibly difficult season, really tethering me back again to that idea of Him being present with me, with all of us, Emmanuel here and now, He hasn’t gone anywhere.

Narrator: To learn more about Carolyn Weber, visit www.carolynweber.com, and check out the film adaptation of her memoir, Surprised by Oxford, available on streaming services.

If you’d like to hear more stories about the intersection of faith and science, check out our interview with Tom Rudelius.

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Next Week: Tahj Mowry

Next time on the Jesus Calling Podcast, we’ll hear from actor Tahj Mowry, who shares how he balances a life in the spotlight by grounding himself with family, a close, personal relationship with God, and a consistent attitude of gratitude. 

Tahj Mowry: I think if we’re constantly attempting and realizing how blessed we truly are, it helps us to live with an attitude of gratitude and to stay humble and to remember that that little moment of waking up in the morning is the best thing ever, because so many people don’t get that.