I would guess that most of us have a default mode.

It kicks in automatically.

It means that we don’t think about it or make concious choices, it just starts it’s default mode automatically.

For instance, when you get a stressful phone call or email, what do you do? Eat ice cream? Pace? Scroll through instagram? Bite fingernails?

My default mode is more information. I want to know more. I want to search all the possible outcomes or different people’s opinions on things. I want to order books from the library and learn. I like learning. But this default mode for me is often not about learning, it’s about coping. It’s about control.

Let’s say that I’m waiting for test results from a MRI (a true example from this past week). When I stop to reflect (which sometimes I just forget to do), I realize my core emotion that is creeping up is fear. What will this mean? What will it reveal? What should I be prepared for? Fear. Plain old fear.

So, coping then looks like trying to ease that fear by allowing my default mode to kick in … and acquiring more information. But as I do, as I sit on the couch, curled up, body tense as I strive to rest the laptop comfortably on my knees, straining my neck in weird positions for much longer than I intended to, I do acquire more information. But I also acquire a stiff neck and a full mind.

Thriving is a whole other story. It is not based in fear but in love.

Thriving is about asking ourselves what makes me well? What nourishes my mind, heart, soul and body? Is it a contrived, awkward position on the couch staring at a screen for hours? Nope.

It is about being compassionate to myself realizing that this is stressful for me. So instead, I choose to do what would make me well. I choose to drink lots of water, walk, clean the house or ask for help with it. It’s about paying bills, cleaning our desks, filing papers, watching a hilarious movie while chopping up veggies in the kitchen. It’s about being with friends and sharing truthful stories about how we are really doing and caring and being cared for by others. It’s about watching or reading the news with a critical mind AND the wisdom to know we weren’t meant to know what’s going on around the world every 30 minutes or whenever we get a tweet or email or text. We still have to take of our own lives.

And for those of us who place our trust in God, it is about prayer — all day long prayer — conversing with God, listening, waiting, meditating, reading or listening to his word, praising, lamenting, listening, rejoicing, resting, inquiring, resting silently. It is about grabbing our lazy brains by the shoulders and saying, “Hey brain, smarten up. Thanks for trying to protect me but I will choose what we think about and it’s going to be intentional and good and it’s going to be about what makes us thrive and it’s going to be surrendered to God’s will in my life! So, get ready, because I’m paying attention now. It’s manual now, not automatic, not default brain anymore!!”

I think that we all have great intentions but our default modes are powerful. They sneak in when we’re not looking and we let our fears take over the controls in our brains and bodies and then before we know it, one empty bucket of ice cream or chip bag or a growing pile of laundry, we feel lousy and wonder why.

Here’s some great encouragement from the apostle Paul to the church in Rome many years ago but still so relevant today:

“So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you.” Romans 12:1-2 (The Message)

Let’s be people who understand our value. We are worth being intentional in our lives. We are worth taking care of ourselves. We are worth paying attention to the default modes in our brains and stopping — to reflect on what our brain is trying to protect us from —and then choosing a new way. We can still care for others and pay attention to what’s happening in the world but we can do it with intention! Choosing to thrive!