Most people are not rebellious—they are rehearsed.
It amazes me how much we learn when we pay attention—when we are intentional and posture our hearts to listen. That statement may sound simplistic, but rarely do we put it into practice. This week, several things happened and intersected. More accurately, a synthesis of conversations came together and gave me a fuller understanding. Stay with me here; I will offer some framework.
Earlier this week, my longtime friend John Houmes —someone I have known since kindergarten—sent me a text commenting on a section of my book Stuckness. As he was reading, it reminded him of a book he and his wife had read on childhood attachment, which included the quote, “Whatever fires… wires.” When he mentioned that, it excited me because it took me back to some of my earliest study while writing Stuckness. More on that later. What mattered most in that moment was where our conversation began to focus: how thoughts can be transformed and how synapses play a critical role in that process.
I mentioned there were a few conversations that came together and really opened my eyes. To complete that synthesis, my quiet time early this morning pulled everything together.
This year, I am reading the Bible chronologically again. Although I completed the Bible in 2024 and spent much of 2025 diving deeper into the Word in other ways, I felt the Holy Spirit nudge me back toward completing the Bible in a year. A sincere thank you to Tony Demakis and Jennifer Jehl, as I am joining them and many others in a virtual Bible study. This morning, I spent time in Job, chapters 14–16.
If you are still with me, you may be wondering what synapses, specifically Job 16, and my book have in common. With deep gratitude for the friends God has placed in my life, let us dive in.
There is a quiet way people become stuck. Rarely does it happen through one dramatic failure. More often, it happens through repetition. A thought revisited. A reaction rehearsed. A behavior practiced long enough that it no longer feels chosen. Over time, it simply feels like who we are.
Neuroscience describes this process through Hebb’s Law, first articulated by Donald Hebb and commonly summarized as, “neurons that fire together wire together.” Sound familiar? The concept is simple: the brain strengthens whatever it practices. Repeated thoughts and behaviors form neural pathways that become faster, easier, and eventually automatic. The brain does not judge whether something is true or good; it reinforces what is familiar. And over time, familiarity begins to masquerade as truth.
This matters because most strongholds are not chosen intentionally. They are learned. A fearful thought rehearsed becomes anxiety. A defensive reaction practiced becomes withdrawal or anger. Eventually, these patterns begin to speak: This is just how I am. I will always struggle with this. What began as a response becomes a cycle, and the cycle begins to falsely name us. In Stuckness, I introduce L.I.E.—an acronym designed to help locate the root of the problem and pull it before it grows too deep.
This is where Scripture presses in with wisdom that is both ancient and precise. Paul writes, “We take every thought captive to obey Christ” (2 Corinthians 10:5, ESV). This is not about suppressing thoughts or pretending they do not exist. It is about interruption. It is about refusing to allow unchecked thoughts to repeat long enough to harden into pathways that shape our lives. Scripture has always treated thoughts as formative because it understands that repeated thoughts shape repeated actions, and repeated actions shape character. Do not take my word for it—Proverbs 23:7 makes it plain: “As he thinks in his heart, so is he.”
This also explains why awareness alone does not bring change. Insight without practice still allows the same pathways to fire. Many people genuinely desire freedom, yet default to the same reactions under pressure. This is not always defiance; often it is wiring. The brain reaches for what it knows. Scripture names this reality without condemnation and calls it renewal: “Be transformed by the renewal of your mind” (Romans 12:2, ESV). Renewal implies process. It implies repetition. It implies patience.
Here is the second piece of understanding that hit me like a ton of bricks early this morning in my quiet time.
If the brain reaches for what it knows, this is where the compassion of Jesus Christ becomes essential. Jesus does not meet repeated failure with disgust; He meets it with understanding. “He knows our frame; he remembers that we are dust” (Psalm 103:14, ESV). Jesus sees the fear beneath the habit, the wound beneath the reaction, the lie beneath the cycle. When He encounters people trapped in patterns, He begins with presence, not shame.
This posture is echoed powerfully in Job 16. Job calls his friends miserable comforters not because they lacked words, but because they lacked presence. They could not sit with him in the weight of his suffering. They spoke at him instead of being with him. Their impulse to explain, correct, or spiritualize his pain only deepened his isolation. Job did not ask them to solve his suffering; he longed to be seen within it. And even in his anguish, he clung to this truth: there is a witness in heaven. God sees him. God stays.
That matters, because shame reinforces strongholds, while compassion creates space for interruption.
Job’s suffering was not something God rushed to correct before drawing near. God was not uncomfortable with Job’s grief. He allowed it to be spoken, witnessed, and named without being cleaned up. This is how Jesus meets us as well—not standing over us with answers, but sitting with us in what hurts. And if this is how God meets us, it reshapes how we understand ourselves. Our pain is not a flaw to fix before it can be acknowledged; it is something that can be held without condemnation.
This does not mean Jesus excuses sin. It means He addresses it at the root. He restores dignity before calling for change. Truth follows compassion because compassion allows truth to be practiced rather than resisted. Job’s friends were quick to correct; God was willing to witness. That difference reveals something essential about transformation. Both Scripture and science affirm that people change best in environments of safety, not threat. I have seen this time and time again as a leader, and with confidence I can say: compassion lowers defensiveness. Lowered defensiveness allows awareness. Awareness creates the moment where a thought can be captured instead of obeyed.
Hebb’s Law explains how cycles form, but it also explains how they can change. The brain remains capable of renewal. Old pathways can weaken. New ones can be built. And that change is only made visible through intentional repetition. This is why Stuckness is not about quick fixes. It is about faithful practice. Taking thoughts captive is not a one-time victory; it is a daily discipline. Each interruption matters. Each truthful thought rehearsed loosens the grip of the old pattern. And that work becomes possible when pain is met with presence rather than pressure.
What we practice shapes what we become. What we repeat begins to feel like who we are. But what Christ names us is truer than any cycle we learned. Job 16 reminds us that compassion is not loud, corrective, or hurried. It stays. And strongholds are dismantled not through shame, but through truth practiced in compassion. Jesus is patient enough to walk every step of that renewal with us.
With thankfulness,
F.P.
Thought-Provoking Questions:
What thoughts or reactions in my life feel automatic—and how might repetition, not truth, be shaping them?
Where have I tried to correct, explain, or fix pain—my own or someone else’s—instead of practicing the presence that creates space for real transformation?
If renewal requires patient repetition, what one thought or response is Christ inviting me to interrupt and practice differently this week?