How Do You Steer an Elephant

Have you ever known the right thing to do… and did the wrong thing anyway? Both behavioral psychology and neuroscience suggest that our brains operate on two different wavelengths. There’s the reasonable, rational, conscious part of your brain (left-side) and the automatic, intuitive, reactionary part of your brain (right-side).

Jonathan Haidt compares the two sides to a rider on an elephant: the rider knows where the elephant should go, and with enough time can direct the elephant… somewhat. But the elephant—our automatic responses (what Paul calls “our flesh”)—is actually far stronger than our conscious thought (the rider), no matter what we might wish to believe. So, how can we re-program our minds so that our automatic responses are the right ones?

In Romans 12, Paul describes four practices for spiritual formation—loving God (v. 1), growing together (vv. 3-5), serving one another (vv. 6-8), and sharing our lives with others (v. 13)—that both deepen our connection with God and establish our new identity as part of God’s family. Because the best way to re-direct an elephant is to put it in a herd moving in the same (and the right) direction.