DAY 16: BEHAVIOR CURVE PT. 2 (START)

My wife and I know from experience that a dating couple need limits and boundaries in their physical relationship. We didn’t always make the right choices and life ended up more challenging and complicated as a result.


But God . . .


there’s those two words again . . .


is gracious, merciful, and a bestower of peace, prosperity, and healing.


And for that, I’m forever grateful.

 


As a parent, I knew I would have to share with my kids some of the poor decisions we made before we married and hopefully be able to draw upon those for lessons in their relationships.


One lesson is that the capacity to think in your ‘right-mind’ diminishes as your situation becomes more lustful.


To relate back to the curve, here’s what it looks like. As our lustful behavior escalates (black line), our ability to make good decisions deescalates (orange line).


Make sense?


True based on your experience?

 

If this is all true and applies to making better decisions, then the next logical conclusion is that we are most likely to get off the curve of poor decisions BEFORE the lines cross.


For David’s story, that moment is in verse 4 of 1 Samuel.


Notice though, I said “most likely”. At every point on this curve we are but one right decision away from diffusing a series of wrong decisions. It’s just that we’re at a chemical & brain wiring pattern disadvantage to do so once we pass where the lines cross.


Are you with me?

 


Last for today, take some time drawing out (and noticing moving forward from today) your behavior curves in your journal.


Look for patterns.


What you’ll likely notice are certain tendencies from times of day & life circumstances to triggers & methods for escalation.


Once you see these patterns, the next step is to find ways to sidestep those triggers. Avoiding triggers at this point in your journey will help develop a new pattern to your behavior which will help with that neuroplasticity we talked about a few days ago, establishing a new neuropathway for how you handle your triggers.


This is especially helpful as triggers lower on the curve are easier to resist both because they’re not prompting as strong of a chemical response in our brains, and our capacity for right-minded thinking is stronger at those points.


More on this for the next couple days but for now think of things in these terms.

Right-minded thinking & escalating behaviors have an inverse relationship.

 


Thoughts to Pray/Journal:

  • What are your ‘verse 4’ moments on your own behavior curve? Specifically.
  • Make a list of 4-6 ways to disarm the curve’s escalation before the lines cross.
  • How does this perspective/information change the way you can make decisions?

 

Reading:

2 Samuel 11 (again)