An Understanding Mind

Scripture: 1 Kings 2.10-12, 3.3-14; Ephesians 5.15-20


There is a stereotype in our culture of the simple-minded fool with the heart of gold. Think Forrest Gump. But in reality, lack of intelligence goes hand-in-hand with bad morals and bad character. Enter the dumb criminal.

Chicago – a man is wanted for throwing bricks through jewelry store windows and then making off with the loot. He was arrested last night for trying to throw a brick through a Plexiglass window. The brick bounced back off the window, hit him in the head, and knocked him out cold until the police arrived.

Ann Arbor – a man walked into a Burger King in Ypsilanti at 7:50am, flashed a gun and demanded cash. The clerk turned him down and said he couldn’t open the cash register without a food order. When the robber order onion rings, the clerk told him they weren’t available for breakfast. The robber, frustrated, walked away.

A man walked into a convenience store, laid a $20 on the counter and asked the clerk for change. When the clerk opened the cash register, the man pulled out a gun and ordered the clerk to give him all the cash in there, which the clerk did. The robber ran off with the cash but left his twenty on the counter. The amount of money he made off with - $15.


Daniel Goleman wrote an influential and best-selling book in which he argues that effectiveness in life is based not nearly so much on cognitive intelligence as on what might be called “emotional intelligence.” This is what can cause people with high IQs to end up in failed marriages or frustrating vocations.

One of the qualities of emotional intelligence is hope. “Having hope means that one will not give in to overwhelming anxiety, a defeatist attitude, or depression in the face of difficult challenges or setbacks,” Goleman writes. Hope has healing power. In one study, 122 men who had suffered their first heart attack were evaluated on their degree of hopefulness and pessimism. Of the 25 most pessimistic men, 21 had died eight years later. Of the 25 most optimistic, only 6 had died! Loss of hope increased the odds of death more than 300 percent; it predicted death more accurately than any medical risk factor including blood pressure, amount of damage to the heart, or cholesterol level. Better to eat Twinkies in hope than to eat broccoli in despair. Emotional intelligence.

Another characteristic of emotional intelligence is delayed gratification. A classic study of this is called “the marshmallow test.” A four-year-old is in a room with some marshmallows and told that the experimenter has to run an errand. If the four-year-old can wait till the experimenter returns, he can have two marshmallows. If he wants to eat right now, he can – but he only gets one. This will try the soul of any four-year-old. Kids in this experiment develop all kinds of strategies to enable them to wait – sing songs, tell themselves stories, play with their fingers. One kid actually bent down and began to lick the table, as if the flavor of marshmallow had transmogrified into the wood.

What is really amazing is the impact of this character trait displayed at four had later in life. A Stanford University team tracked these children for many years. Those who were able to wait as four-year-olds grew up to be more socially competent, better able to cope with stress, and less likely to give up under pressure than those who could not wait. The marshmallow grabbers grew up to be more stubborn and indecisive, more easily upset by frustration, and more resentful about not getting enough. The marshmallow waiters actually had SAT scores 200 points higher than the marshmallow grabbers! Emotional intelligence. It’s important.

Now let’s say there’s a kid who has been born into wealth and royalty, you know, a silver spoon in his mouth. At a young age he becomes king of a very strong and wealthy nation. The young man is set for life. He can have anything, anything, he wants. No itch need go unscratched. What will he want? What will his heart desire. We could guess how this is likely to go, how this young king’s life will be lived.

But our young king is different. He prays to a God who he believes is his king. The Bible tells us this young king named Solomon “loved the Lord.” One night as Solomon is praying God tells him, “Ask anything you want and I will give it to you.”

Solomon answered, “Lord, I am a dumb kid. I don’t know what I’m doing as king of this great nation, your people. So Lord, I’m going to ask you to give me wisdom, an understanding mind to be a good ruler for the people and for you.”

Solomon was praying, I think, for spiritual and emotional intelligence. He was praying to understand his life and world by faith, through God’s eyes.

God is pleased with Solomon’s request. “I will give you a wise and discerning mind.” Some translations read, “a listening mind.” The Hebrew word here can be translated “heart” or “mind” but the emphasis is on understanding and listening. The Hebrews believed in the connection between heart and mind.

“The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom; all those who practice it have a good understanding. His praise endures forever.” Psalm 111.10

“Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not rely on your own insight. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths. Do not be wise in your own eyes; fear the Lord, and turn away from evil.” Proverbs 3.5-7



What did the Israelites call guys with high IQs who didn’t follow God? Dummies.

In our culture today we are missing the connection between heart and mind, soul and intellect. G.K. Chesterton lamented that the wise men of his day had turned their back on God and denied the possibility of basic morals altogether. Chesterton called them “intellectuals without intelligence.” C.S. Lewis observed the same phenomenon among his contemporaries, the disconnect between head and heart. He called his generation, “men without chests.” In other words, they were men who had not the will to do the right thing for the right reason.

I was watching television the other day and happened upon a program in which a group of people were sitting in a restaurant somewhere having a discussion about faith. What made it interesting was half the group were Christians and half were agnostics or atheists. They were talking about ways they offended each other and ways they could better understand one another. They cut to a story on atheists who had served their country in the military. These men declared themselves to be “atheists in foxholes.” The atheists in the restaurant declared themselves to be as nice and kind and forgiving as any person of faith. I listened to that and thought to myself, “Maybe so. Maybe those atheists are as kind and nice as anybody else. But if so, they are much better men than I am. I know that without God, my prospects for a good and virtuous life are bleak indeed. I doubt my ability to be good (and wise) without God. I have a lot of evidence from my life to back this up. Trust me.

I’ve talked about the story of John Nash before. Nash was the brilliant mathematician and physicist, professor at MIT who would go on to win the Nobel Prize. But what makes Nash truly remarkable is that he battled mental illness all of his adult life. He heard voices and saw people that weren’t really there. The voices made him paranoid caused great damage to him and those who loved him. Yet through it all, Nash’s wife stuck with him, didn’t give up on him. Over time, Nash learned discernment, the truth from the lies. He learned not to do what the imaginary ones told him to do. He learned to wrest control from the false voices.

“I’m not so different from you,” Nash said. “We all hear voices. We just have to decide which ones we’re going to listen to.” Even through mental illness, Nash found understanding and wisdom.

Toward the end of his life Nash was awarded the Nobel Prize. In the movie based on his life, A Beautiful Mind, Nash makes these remarks in his acceptance speech:

“I’ve always believed in numbers, in the equations and logics that lead to reason. But after a lifetime of such pursuits, I ask, what truly is logic? Who decides reason? My quest has taken me through the physical, the metaphysical, the delusional, and back. And I have made the most important discovery of my career, the most important of my life:
It is only in the mysterious equations of Love that any logic or reasons can be found.”

And then Nash looks directly at his wife, sitting in the audience, and says,
“I’m only here because of you. You are the reason I am. You are all my reasons.”


Love is reason of its own. A life lived for God in service to others, that’s the smart choice. That’s the path of wisdom that gives life now and forever.

“Be careful then how you live, not as unwise people but as wise, making the most of the time, because the days are evil. So do not be foolish but understand what the will of the Lord is.” Ephesians 5.15-17