Last week we finished Part Two of our journey through Enemies of the Heart by Andy Stanley. revealing the Fantastic Four; guilt, anger, jealousy and greed, with the basic principles of:
Guilt: “I owe you”
Anger: “You owe me”
Greed: “I owe me”
Jealousy: “God owes me”
Now that we have the foundational principles, what are we supposed to do now? We have been presented this dramatic truths about human behavior and the complexity and dysfunction of our own lives. What has gone wrong has happen over many decades of our life and will not be corrected in a blink of an eye. We begin part three.
The most powerful agent of growth and transformation is something much more basic than any technique:
a change of heart. – John Welwood
As illustrated in chapter ten, discomfort is part of the healing process. We will need to exercise our heart to strengthen it for change to occur. Like the example of the ailing man named Brian that was in bad physical health and went to the doctor for help and was told to start an exercise routine. Brian could not understand how all the physical work, which would exhaust him, could help his ailing heart. It sure seemed like it would be risky and difficult. But the doctor reassured him:
“I am trying to fix your heart.This is how to fix it: by exercising it. The discomfort is part of the cure. You strengthen a muscle by exhausting it and then letting it rest. To fix your heart we’ve got to exhaust it periodically and then letting it rest. And yes, you will sweat. And you’ll be sore. And you won’t always feel too good during the process, but this is the ‘road to recovery’.
Brian insists that the doctor fix his heart so he can be better, like losing weight so he can exercise, and the doctor’s response is bold, surprising and a shock: “Brian, you’re an idiot”. How often do we approach our life in the same manner? God, if you fix my heart and my thinking, I will be a better husband. If my heart was better I would not have such a bad attitude or want to sin as much. If it was that easy, we would have done it long ago. I know in my life, most of the restriction in my own road to recovery has not been lack of opportunity, but really laziness on my part where I don’t want to put in the necessary work and enduring pain, I just want it to be better, so the results would be better. How about you?
What is your personal prognosis of your heart condition? Which of the fantastic four seems to be the most alarming at this stage in your life?
Can you relate to any of the fantastic four in your past? Was there challenges and work to see any changes? What changed? How did that come about?
Everybody is an Idiot Sometimes
I don’t know about you, but there have been countless times where I have had the same type of reasoning that Brian had. A majority of my challenges these days in this area are not with physical conditions, but mental, emotional and spiritual conditions, not conversing with a doctor, but with God.
Like the worship song…”Change my heart God”, we ask and plead and have this hope if God would just do His part we could cooperate better. Isn’t that the same approach of just instantly being in better shape would make it easier to exercise? Changing a heart is not as simple as singing a song and raising your hands. It requires effort. Sometimes it requires pain and always some discomfort in change. A changed heart is the result of forming some new habits, some exercises of the heart. For the same reason as most of us would rather sing about it than do the hard work. Like Brian, we want a miracle cure. A quick fix.
Nothing Changes if Nothing Changes
A lot of times we identify areas or behaviors of our life that have become an unhealthy habit and vow to break that habit. To stop doing the things that are not good. We need to understand that there we will never get rid of all our habits and that there are some actually very many habits that vital and beneficial. How about brushing your teeth at certain times of the day, or after eating. That is a habit. We might call some habits routines, such as a quite time, exercising or weekly bible study.
We can pray everyday for a generous heart, but until we start exercising our heart to be generous, nothing is going to change. It is similar to the example: “Lord, give me a smaller appetite, then I will start eating less”. To be able to shrink our exercise we need to embark on some new tactics, routines, exercises, habits, appetite shrinking exercises .
Old Habits Die Hard
Guilt, anger, greed and jealousy are all habit forming. Like any habit, overtime, if we ignore them, they become an identity. It is just who we are we claim.to be. These disorders become such a part of us that we no longer fview them as issues to be resolved. Instead, we dismiss these destructive habits as characteristics hardwired into our personality.
Our old habits, our behaviors and characteristics, don’t just change one day. We pray for change, yet we make many excuses about the exact thing that needs change. A profound, truthful statement provide and be uncomfortable:
If, God wants to change me overnight, fine. But, if you are asking me to work at it, then maybe you are trying to make me somebody that I’m not.
Do you ever catch yourself praying and pleading for changes in your life, yet acknowledge you don’t exercise or form new habits for the changes to occur.
In the coming weeks we are going to identify some spiritual exercises for the fantastic four habits. Let’s journey together and go through the upcoming chapters to get some heart exercises defined for change to happen.