Fly-paper spirituality is quite common now-a-days. Like a cartoon character trying to take a step forward we find our feet being snapped back into the gooey, sticky place where we were before. We are absolutely stuck. Stuck in behavior, relationships, situations and sin that we don’t want. Everyday it’s the same old me staring back at me. Where is the progress? Where is the transformation? How do I get unstuck?

There is a recipe for unstuck. But I must warn the reader that it is brutal. Any sympathy toward ourselves will get us nowhere. We must be ruthless and follow the recipe of unstuckness to a T.

1) We must admit to ourselves that our stuckness (whatever it is) is harmful to ourselves, others and our relationship with God. If we minimize our stuckness we will not get free. We must admit (confess) to God that our stuckness is—stuck. We can’t get free and live the abundant life in this state. We must hate it.

2) We must take a our first step forward by cutting off what is creating the stuckness. Jesus says, If your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to go into hell (Matt. 5:30). Paul says, that we are to take off the old self just like we take off old clothes that are dirty, don’t fit, and don’t look good on us (Eph 4:22; Col 3:9).

3) Then we turn to the cross. I put my trust in Jesus’ finished work on the cross. I am helpless to free myself. I must trust in God’s love to forgive and his love to transform. The believer’s life is a love-life trusting in a God of love.

The cross is not only for forgiveness but also for transformation. The cross will get me unstuck. Here is doctrinal and mystical truth that involves a life exchange; mine for his.

Paul encourages us that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin (Rom 6:6); i.e. no longer stuck. The cross is not only an instrument of sacrifice for sin, but a mystical union of my life and Jesus’ life. I (my stuck self) by faith died with Christ. And my new self rose with him from the dead.

As long as my stuck self is allowed to live and have power and decision making privileges I will remain stuck. But if I believe (trust) in the reality of my crucifixion and resurrection with Christ, then this new reality becomes my worldview.

4) I must regularly embrace and take a step into my new life. Paul uses various metaphors to describe this emerging newness. He commands us to offer our bodies using sacrificial language (Rom 12:1). He reminds us to put on our new person, using the language of clothing (Eph 4:22-25).

I’m forgetful and my old default of thinking and behavior is powerful. So I must regularly see myself as a forgiven, new creation in Jesus, with new thinking and behavior. This is my new default setting.

I can’t be passive in this transformation I must be active in my response to Jesus action in the cross and resurrection. This transformation is powerful but I (my will) is the spark that responds to God’s grace. I must ruthlessly respond to his ruthless grace.

5) I must not do this alone. It’s not a me, but a we. It is the fellowship of the king. I must have friends. I must band together with dwarfs, elves, humans, and hobbits to find my strength in numbers. A water drop alone will evaporate but collectively raging water drops are called a river.

This is not mere church attendance but true friendship—fellowship. It can be any small group of believers that meets anywhere for prayer and support.

6) I must love others. Transformation is not navel gazing or simply defensively getting unstuck. It is not staring into a self-help mirror and asking it who is the fairest of them all. It is moving forward in love toward others. God is love and on the move toward humanity and we must join him. The transformed life looks like sacrificial love.

7) As I love others in word and deed something magical happens. I begin to live the God-life. God gives Himself away in love. In this fallen world we think we grow by focusing on ourselves. Helping, listening, serving, waiting on others is the secret life. It is more blessed to give than receive. Become delirious on love’s love for us and his love for others through us.

This seven-step recipe is a good one. Some have broken it down into ten or twelve steps but that is not the point. Some will find it helpful to have a personal trainer/counselor to move forward.

The good news for modern man is that we don’t have to live stuck lives waiting for heaven. We can begin to live incredible lives moonstruck by God. Now get yourself into your kitchen with this recipe and begin to bake.

In the Great Divorce by C. S. Lewis there is an unforgettable scene where a ghostly man with an annoying lizard on his shoulder is confronted by a flaming angel. The angel wants to help transform this man into an authentic, freed, redeemed person but the lizard stands in the way. Every attempt by the angel is thwarted by the reptile pest, who keeps whispering lies of happiness into the man’s ear. For a while the man is stuck, wanting to be authentic, alive and free but trapped by his attachment to the enslaving lizard.

This is a picture of many of us who have given our lives over to some addiction or attachment. Some addictions are obvious: alcohol, drugs (legal and illegal), and sex. These are the “big ones” that many pride themselves on being free from. But there are others more socially acceptable. Ambition, positions and accomplishments, fame or popularity, possessions and wealth can equally become addictions. Each of these can damage and control our lives as we pursue them in an inordinate way.

We call them attachments because like the lizard they somehow attach themselves to us and become a part of us. We often are blind to how these attachments control our lives but those around us can see it clearly. Our lust for these things ends up controlling our lives because we see them as defining our happiness.

The term lust in our culture is usually reserved for intense sexual desires but it hasn’t always been the case. In ancient Greece the word was reserved for any intense, inappropriate longing.  Drink, medication, sex, achievement, friends and possessions all have their proper and healthy place in society but when we obsess on one as the solution for my happiness it becomes a lust—a lizard on our shoulder whispering “more.” In our freedom to pursue happiness we have become enslaved to something that makes us less human. It has become a lust.

Often our lusts mask and short-circuit our deepest, purest longings. Our deepest desires are for true love, meaning, and happiness. We long for love and truth found in the face of God. We long for the exchange of this love with other people. This is where our true humanity is discovered.
When deep, spiritual longing is allowed to pervade our lives, shallow lust cannot survive. There is not enough oxygen for both. The lust that created a hollow, wasteful, selfish life gives way to heavenly desire that fills the lungs of our humanity. We live deeply appreciating and loving people as persons, discovering the beauty of nature, and learning to commune with God Himself.

It the Great Divorce the ghostly subhuman offers a barrage of lame denials and excuses as to why he can’t change. The whole time the lizard is furiously whispering in the man’s ear to protect this life of lust. Then finally the man relents. He allows the angel to reach out his flaming hand to grasp the biting and writhing lizard, breaking its back as it is hurled to the ground.

Instantly the man begins to change. The vaporous, addicted, subhuman begins to become solid and golden. He shines like a small angel full of dignity and life.

But to the surprise of the reader the lizard also is transformed. The ugly, reptilian pest struggles and ultimately emerges into a beautiful, silvery white stallion with a golden mane and tail. The “new-made man” grabs the neck of the new horse and they breathe nose to nose into each other’s nostrils. Then with tears of “liquid love” he embraces the angel’s golden feet.

Finally, like a scene out of the knight from Camelot, he leaps on the horse’s back. Then, nudging the stallion with his heels, he waves goodbye and rides off into the “everlasting morning” toward the distant mountains.

Lewis interprets this scene through the voice of his literary mentor, George MacDonald. He says that addictions and attachments can’t fulfill us not simply because they are too rank, but because they are “too weak.” He continues:

What is a lizard compared with a stallion? Lust is a poor, weak, whimpering whispering thing compared with that richness and energy of desire which will arise when lust has been killed.

We call it a broken heart. What a graphic term to describe our emotional wounds. The core of my being, cracked, busted, shattered like a egg.
The cause is a painful loss in life. The loss of a friend, a lover, a job, a family member or a home. In these situations the damage is so dramatic it leaves us feeling listless, defeated, empty and hopeless. We wonder if we can keep on going.

While many of us, in these times, find help by turning to friends, therapists and doctors, there is Someone else that cares greatly about our wounds. His name is Jesus.

Jesus once announced that the purpose of his mission was to bind up the brokenhearted, fulfilling what the prophets had predicted about the Messiah. Like a doctor bandaging a wound, Jesus’ mission was and is to bandage and mend our broken hearts.

There was a woman named Mary Magdalene whose heart and life was completely shattered. There is no way for us to know the full extent of her emotional and spiritual abuse. But she knew full well what it was to have a broken heart. It was Jesus who came to her healing her heart and setting her free.

Recently I was able to see a young woman’s heart healed who’d lost her husband at an early age to cancer. Sometimes healing a broken heart takes time. Now two years later she is filled with hope and joy because of Jesus’ touch in her life.

There is something else to notice about a broken heart. As people made in God’s image we long for things to be put right–justice. We hope for the good, the true, the loving and the beautiful. Since non of us have even been to a perfect world, where does this longing for goodness, justice, love and beauty come from. It pre-exists in all of us. It’s this hopeful longing in utter darkness that points us to the light.

I have discovered in my loneliest moments that Someone is there with me whose name is Jesus. He is the healer of my broken heart. He is the One who quietly walks with me during my loss. He never leaves me and is with me always, eventually healing my broken heart.

So, what if His desire is to bandage our hearts and make us whole? What if he truly cares? What if He loves me more than I could know? What if all I have to do is trust Him with my broken heart and ask Him to make it whole?