Transformation: Beyond “What” and into “Why”, Part II

Whenever someone discloses to me a struggle with addiction or any compulsive behavior—to pornography, over-eating, buying, or really any violation of their conscience—or when I simply reflect on my own struggles, I've learned to ask, “What’s the loneliness or sorrow beneath this behavior?”  Finding the longing beneath our behavior is always the key to transforming it.  Simply telling someone to “stop” is like telling them give a paint job to a car that needs a new alternator.  You have to get under the hood!  We must engage will power, too, of course, but in addition to behavior modification, we have to bring our hearts into the light of reality.  If we are unwilling to confess either our behavior (the what) or what lies beneath it (the why), we aren’t coming into reality and, thus, we keep the Spirit at arm’s length.  And confessing the what without addressing the why is like cutting the top half of a weed and thinking you've dealt with the problem.  

Sometimes it is a great risk to name and label reality!  If you carry shame because of what you’ve done or by what was done to you—if were abused or molested, for example—it can feel like death to name and label that reality and to allow another person to know it.  You may have spent your life trying to hide or over-power your secret.  And while you may hate your story or your secret, you might feel you need it to survive.  You may love the power you get from being right about your story and who you are and how you deserve shame and punishment.  You may feel you will cease to exist without your dysfunction as a reference point.  So, it can take great courage to name and label the why.  Indeed, it’s usually (always?) the Spirit of God who reveals to us the why.  This, again, is why we can’t fully walk out confession and repentance without the grace of God.  Only in the whispering of God’s Spirit are we led to label not only what we’ve done but what’s driving it, which is, to use another auto metaphor, the gas that’s running the engine. 

Spiritual life, and certainly the abundant and eternal life of which Jesus spoke, always demands this kind of rigorous courage and humility, which is why we so often avoid it.  

Transformation: Beyond “What” and into “Why”, Part I

Even still, the work of confession and repentance must go deeper.  Another milestone on the path of transformation is confessing not just what we’ve done, but learning to label why we did it.  As stated above, confessing and repenting are always connected to naming and labeling reality.  The first task God gave Adam was to name the animals so that he could live in ordered reality in the world around him, and our ongoing work, to live in reality, is to continue to faithfully name reality, led by the Spirit of God.[1]  When we do that, we develop an inner life, and developing an inner life is the only way to create a field for the Holy Spirit to play on.  This does not mean endless introspection, which just gets us curved back over on ourselves.  But it does mean the diligent work of asking, “Why?”

By way of a story, here’s what I mean: Before I met my wife, I had a consistent pattern of using women.  (The story I cited earlier is just one small chapter in a larger story, sad to say.)  Not always sexually, but always emotionally.  It was confusing to me, because I was genuinely attracted to and genuinely cared for each person with whom I was in a relationship.  But while I would be open and vulnerable with them, which bonded them to me, there was a disconnect between the affection I was looking for and ultimately, the affection I was willing to give.  Quite simply, I left a long line of very understandably hurt women in my wake.  I hated myself for it.  And I was confused, because I didn’t mean to.  Nevertheless, the fault and the responsibility were mine.

This is the what, which was certainly worthy of confession and repentance.  But it wasn’t until I got into the why that the pattern could be broken.  Things cannot be transformed if they are not in the light!  That’s spiritual physics, like the law of gravity.  Count on it 100% of the time. 

Why was this pattern in place?  I was insecure, for all sorts of reasons.  And I was looking for affection to make me feel more secure.  I was longing for acceptance, desperate for it.  At root, there was actually a beautiful longing for love and connection.  It’s a crazy truth: at the root of all sin is some good longing that has become twisted.  As Bruce Marshall wrote, “the young man who rings the bell at the brothel is unconsciously looking for God.”[2]

It is precisely this longing within us that must be touched if we are to be truly transformed.  The religion which Jesus railed against is all about making the outside look sorted while inside, the deep humanity that needs to be touched is, in the name of God, actually hidden from God. 

So, we must get into the why.  This is not to say that we should seek to endlessly know ourselves.  We will always remain mystery, at some level, to ourselves.  Nor does it mean that knowing the reason behind a behavior excuses it.  Indeed, knowing the why is never an excuse; we must always take responsibility for the what and for whatever pain we cause.  That’s the only path to freedom.  But without learning to label the why, we will end up in a cycle of shame from which there is no escape, confused as to why will power alone is not setting us free.  Until you can label the why, you will not be able to see yourself or others with compassion, and you will not be able to become open to God so that His love can transform you.  Ultimately, we discover that God is actually the one confronting and compassionately revealing the longing and the need that is driving our dysfunctional behavior, which is the only way we can be led into freedom.  But we have to participate in this revealing, and that happens only as we are humble enough to hear and be honest.

[1] Genesis 2:20

[2] This quote has often been attributed to G.K. Chesterton, but The American Chesterton Society notes the source as The World, The Flesh, and Father Smith by Bruce Marshall, 1945.

Transformation: The Power of Taking Ourselves Less Seriously

Since discipleship is an on-going process of transformation, we have to ask, How does transformation happen?  And, more specifically, in regards to the topic at hand, how does confession and repentance lead to transformation? 

Remember that transformation happens, simply, by seeing Who God is.  When you see the God of all grace and love, and allow Him to embrace you, you cannot help but be transformed.[1]  This requires a re-orientation, because up until this seeing we are often in fantasy, about both who God is and who we are.

Repentance and confession, simply put, allow us to see who we are: namely, that we are not God.  This seems obvious, but it is a reality which, in practice, we often miss.  Every time we try to wrest acceptance from others based or validation for ourselves based on how smart or talented we are, or how good looking or successful, or how much we own, we are attempting to gain on our own terms what only can be received fully in God.  Thus, in a very real sense, we believe we are God.  Confession and repentance is an acknowledging of our weakness, that we can’t get everything right, which is why Christianity is all about needing a Savior.  "We cannot save ourselves," is the core cry at the heart of confession and repentance.  

This frees us to take a different posture towards ourselves.  We become free to step out of the insistence that we can get everything right on our own, which keeps us from the reality that we only come to God in weakness.  We live into this posture, quite simply, by learning to laugh at ourselves.  As Martin Luther purportedly said: “You have as much laughter as you have faith.”[2]  I am not talking about doing wrong and then laughing, I am talking about doing your very best to do right and then, when finding that your humanity and selfishness is still with you, learning to say, “Oh…there I am again!”  At some point we must cease to be surprised or scandalized by our humanity.  Rather than being outraged or ashamed at our selfish thoughts or impulses, you have to simply learn to say, “Yup…that part of my humanity is still alive and kicking!” 

Indeed, our humanity is never going away, and the more time you try wrestling that bear to the ground, the less time and energy you will have for becoming open to God, which is the important thing and the thing that actually transforms you.  Part of transformation, then, is learning to take your sin less seriously.  That probably sounds like heresy since we all know we are supposed to take our sin very seriously.  But it’s taking ourselves less seriously and Jesus more seriously that allows Paul to write, about himself, “I don’t even judge myself!”[3]  He knows that judgment is a waste of time.  Instead, in a quite tangible sense, we have to treat Jesus as more real, and certainly more powerful, than our sin or any weakness that lies within us.

I wake up most mornings focused on myself and often, on some failure in my life or my personality.  If I stay there, I’m kept in a posture of self-focus that makes it quite impossible to be fully open to God, not to mention focused on loving others, which is the heart of following Jesus.  When we learn to laugh at ourselves and refrain from judging ourselves, we are free to focus on God.  We are free to ask, “How can You be so good, to accept me when I’m so unsorted?”  We become postured to live in gratitude.  This is ultimately what pushes us towards a life of meaning, as we become open to all of the possibilities for life and love and beauty which exist outside of ourselves, just beyond our ego’s self-focus. 

[1] Cf. 1 John 3:2

[2] For as often as I can find this quote attributed to the Reformer, I cannot find the attribution!

[3] I Corinthians 4:3