Tonight after a long and weary day my wife and I made our way back to our room in a brand new hotel. We have the habit of climbing stairs whenever we can just for the exercise. But tonight, being so tired, we made our way across the lobby and headed straight for the elevator. There we met a sign that caused us to cock our heads to the side, “pardon the inconvenience the elevator is under renewal.” There beside the elevator was a repair man up to his elbows in wires, cables and gears.

“Under renewal?” Curious language. It sounds like the words of a politician. The truth of the matter is that the elevator is broken. It’s under repair. Renewal is a stretch. How do you renew an elevator in a brand new hotel? It’s already new. The truth is it’s flat out broken. Why do we have such difficulty calling things for what they are?

You know where this is going. Human beings don’t simply need renewal. We are flat out broken and in need of a major overhaul. It’s called transformation. But we are so hesitant to use the grand term transformation. Renewal or self-improvement sounds a lot better. Less offensive. Less invasive. But perhaps that’s the rub. Maybe the self needs to be offended; maybe even put to death. Maybe the pride of self and its choices are at the core of the problem. Maybe the self needs an invasive procedure.

To be fair, there are certain things we can do improve and renew by ourselves. We can make time, exercise, and communication adjustments to become a more effective and productive human beings. Behavior modification is all about this. But for major transactions of the soul, we need help from outside.

Christianity is just that–help from outside. From creation to incarnation to salvation to final redemption, our is a story about a transcendent God who from outside stepped into our story to transform us. Ours is an alien wholeness where God’s nature, will and power come to us, initiate and maintain our transformation. Although our cooperation is vital (which I will begin to describe in my next blog), transformation begins as a holy invasion of the kingdom of God. We are helpless to transform ourselves significantly. Ours is an Alien Wholeness (Helmut Thielecke). This is the uniqueness of Christian wholeness.

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.

Sleep is far overrated. It is a bully. It gobbles up 1/3 of every day. 30% of our lives. If we live to be ninety, we will have spent 30 years sleeping. What a waste. Or so I thought. Somewhere in the world there was a party going on and I was missing it, napping on my pillow.

In college I determined to wean myself from this monster. Every week I allowed myself 15 less minutes of sleep. I was down to less than six hours a night and headed for four. I had read somewhere that people like Benjamin Franklin only required four hours. While everyone else was wasting there life away unplugged, I would be vibrantly living!

Now the research is in. As creatures we actually require sleep. It is where we renew, recharge and restore our mind and body. In fact eight to nine hours is recommended for us to live longer and healthier lives.

If the science is right, the person who doesn’t sleep will live a shorter life, and a less vibrant life. (The person with sleep disorder please disregard this article. Your anger and frustration is justified. The person with deadlines, finals, or is at war in Afghanistan please disregard for now). I am writing for those of us in the center of the bell curve.

Psalm 127:2 was my nemesis in college: In vain you rise early and stay up late. Tioling for food to eat. For He grants sleep to those he loves.

God grants sleep! Not only is he working on my behalf while I sleep. And it is vain or empty for me to push the limits of my mortality and live as though I don’t need sleep. I am a creature not the Creator.

To sleep or not to sleep is, therefore, not only a biological issue, but a spiritual issue. It is an inescapable metaphor pointing to our dependency on God. It demands our faith in the one who watches over us, who will neither slumber nor sleep (Psa. 121:4).

Essentially, sleep brings three issues to the surface: our mortality (we are limited), our dependency on God and faith. Faith, because we must trust in the one who is caring for us when we cannot care for ourselves. One third of our lives is a sermon on our mortality, dependency and trust.

Trust is a difficult thing for those of us who have been raised in a self-sufficient, pragmatic culture such as Davy Crocket’s and Daniel Boone’s America. We love songs that state, “I did it my way.” Trust feels irresponsible. We must do it ourselves.

But at the end of the day we will all die. As my sons sing “We will all be GONE!” We will have to trust our legacy to our children, we will have to trust our future into the hands of a loving God. Why not learn the lesson while we are awake; while we are living?

So sleep. Sleep is an act of faith. Faith in grace. It is the action of a child trusting in a wise, strong and benevolent Parent. Don’t feel guilty. You are called to it, you need it, and Someone else is caring for you while you helplessly sleep. Good night.

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.

I will never forget my private pilgrimage to the poor part of Atlanta to see where Martin Luther King, Jr. was born and laid to rest. I can still see in my mind the “eternal flame” that burns for King’s “beloved community.” The biblical concept of a “beloved community” kept King striving for justice (an Old Testament concept) while showing grace (a New Testament concept) to those who resisted. King challenged the disconnect that existed in America between faith and practice suggesting that our faith must inform everything we do: our business practices, our politics and our behavior. Our faith teaches us to love our neighbors as ourselves. We must never let our faith be separated from our daily lives again.

King always spoke and lived with the “beloved community” in his mind. Heaven will be made up of people from every nation, race and language that love each other deeply. Heaven will be the “beloved community.”

As we celebrate Martin Luther King’s birthday, let us continue to carry the torch for the “beloved community.” Let us continue to strive for justice and equality for all people. Let us pursue justice for the Dalits in India, for those trapped in human trafficking (modern-day slavery), for the handicapped, the elderly, the unborn and for those in our society who are not treated with human dignity. Let us always give grace to those who don’t understand justice as we do. Let us take encouragement by standing in the long shadow of this great man.

Jesus was once addressing a crowd when he was told that his mother and brothers were outside wanting to speak to him. Before speaking with his natural mother and brothers he used the moment as a teaching opportunity.

Matt. 12:48-50  He replied to him, “Who is my mother, and who are my brothers?”  Pointing to his disciples, he said, “Here are my mother and my brothers.  For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother.”

How does one become so close to Jesus that he calls us family: brother, sister, mother? The answer is tied to obedience: whoever does the Father’s will. Obedient action for God toward others is tied to intimacy with God.

In a similar passage Jesus ties obedience with intimacy: John 14:21 Whoever has my commands and obeys them, he is the one who loves me. He who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love him and show myself to him.”

If we should wonder what we are to obey, Jesus answers that question in John 15:9-14: “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my Father’s commands and remain in his love. . . . My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.  You are my friends if you do what I command.

It seems obvious. Love is not merely a feeling, it is not the absorption of all things into oneness. It is two distinct persons sacrificially giving themselves to each other. Sacrificial love creates the existential feeling of unity, oneness and family.  It is not the reverse.

Closeness is a feeling that follows the tangible action of love. By faith I believe in obeying Jesus and I will love that person as he has commanded me to. The outcome is feeling close to Jesus and often the person we have sacrificially loved.

Jesus is our example. He showed us the greatest love by laying down his life for us. He now calls us friends, family, loved ones if we follow his lead and lay down our lives for him and others. To feel loved, we have to love.

Someone will protest that this is not grace. They will argue that what I am saying is an earning of God’s love. But that is not true. Grace is undeserved. Jesus’ sacrificial love for us was unmerited. Our love for others is to be the same. That is grace. Grace is the motivation for our love for others. Grace does not create passivity but responsibility. We are response-able to God’s love to love others.

Love is not a pietistic platitude, centered solely around immaterial souls and heaven. It is substantive and earthy. Intimacy with the divine, without love for others, is heavenly poppy cock. It is spiritual cotton candy. A mirage. A spiritual state of mind only.

And to have the rock solid subjective assurance that we are one with God, there must be the objective evidence that we are in his family: that his DNA is in us; that we have our Father’s eyes. That truth is seen tangibly in our loving actions for others.

No other disciple was closer to Jesus than John, the Beloved. They were truly friends and he caught this truth. He said:

1 John 4:7, 11-12, 20  Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. . . Since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.  No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us. . .  If anyone says, “I love God,” yet hates his brother, he is a liar. For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen.

So let’s join the God-family. We believe that Jesus sacrificially loved us and died for our sins. Now let’s authenticate our family line by loving others and experience the oneness that he promised.

I, like many, try to live a superhuman life. Superman. Many, from Nietzsche to the writers of the comic-book hero, have pictured humans evolving or becoming superhuman in various ways. We imagine that it is in our power to become super or beyond human.

To facilitate this we create time efficient toys to make us feel we are achieving super human abilities. God is omnipresent. So are we, or so we think by our smart phones. God is all-knowing so are we with our access to infinite online knowledge. God is all-powerful and so are we, at least in our own minds. (Our spouses and friends know better). Still, in ways we appear to be beyond human.

But there is a price to pay. The more we conquer and accomplish the more is expected of us. It used to be that 40 hours a week was a normal work week. But when we were out of the office we were not working. We were playing, eating, driving or resting. Now we ring every drop out of those multi-tasked-forty hours. Then on top of that, we take our work into the car, at the lunch break and to our home. We cram 60 hours of work into forty and then take an extra 20 outside the office. Have we become immortal or are we less human?

The weight we carry and the speed at which we travel reminds us of our true mortality. We may be able to travel in space but we still need space suits. We may be able to work and accomplish great things but we stress ourselves to the point of exhaustion and psychologists still insist we need proper sleep to recharge. We still need to eat and exercise. And we still need play time to re-create our souls. As amazing as we think we are we are still merely but barely human.

The bible, even from the earliest pages, reminds us of that. Genesis chapter two describes us as being created from the dust of the earth, just like the rest of the animals. We are creation not creator. It is a great but humbling reminder to contemplate the truth I don’t always want to hear— I am dirt.

Yet, Scripture is equally stunned by the action of God in making us in his image. The passage says he breathed into us his breath making us a living soul. So we are unique and distinct from the rest of nature but that distinction is not our achievement. It is God’s. I am the image of God to those around me.

Yes, I am special not because of my accomplishments and abilities but because of God’s character stamped onto my being. Reflecting God to this world, giving his love to those around me is the highest the most superb thing I will ever do.

The writer of Psalm 8 seems to reflect this tension between dirt and the divine when he says:
what are mortals that you should think of us, mere humans that you should care for us?
For you made us only a little lower than God, and you crowned us with glory and honor.
Yes, it is wonderful and humbling to be human.

So as I continue in my walk I embrace the dirt-ness of my humanity. My footsteps are washed away as quickly as I leave them in the sand. I can’t do everything. I can’t be everything. I can’t be everywhere or respond to everything. Life is coming at me too fast to respond. I am racing down the freeway so fast that I couldn’t slow down to catch the next exit even if I wanted to. I almost thought I was God. But only he is everywhere at once, all-powerful and all-knowing. There is a God, and it is not me. As for me? Today I’m just human.

Our breakfast discussion turned to New Year resolutions. What changes do we want to make for the New Year? The radio program during our drive reminded us pessimistically that most resolutions will never make it through the year. Maybe that’s because our resolutions are just a good intentions without any nuts and bolts to make it reality.

Maybe the concept of changing our lives this year is too vague. What if we go bigger and smaller with the increment of time. That is, most changes we want for this year, we want for smaller increments of time: for next month, for next week and for tomorrow. But the reverse direction is also true. Most changes we want for our year we also want for the next ten years. Yes, for the rest of our lives.

Perhaps this is a more practical tool to view the new year. If I were going to paint my life I would begin with some broad, macro layout in pencil to make sure everything fits and is in perspective. The micro comes in when I both sketch the details and then actually paint the details using fine brush strokes. Life is the same way. We with God’s help can re-create our lives like a painting.

We need to think macro and micro about our lives. That is, if I don’t want a resolution for my entire life (macro) or for tomorrow (micro) perhaps it’s not a good or practical change. But if I want the resolution for the rest of my life, then the question becomes, how will I incorporate it into my tomorrow? The micro supports the macro and visa versa, but too much is lost in a broad resolution for “next year.” Let me give you an example from my own life.

I want to be better organized in 2010. But unless this is tied to the macro (life) and the micro (day) it probably won’t happen. In fifty years it hasn’t happened. So the big picture is I want to be better organized so that I live my life with quality–in the painting. That means I want to live abundantly without clutter, worrying about what I’ve forgotten or misplaced, spending quality time with people, without missing the important moments of life. I bet I waste ten minutes a day minimum just looking for stuff hidden in my piles. A simple organized life (without being a neat-freak) is connected with abundant life, in that it organizes the details in way that I am choosing what I want rather than just reacting to disorganization and clutter. But it takes time to live. It takes attention to organization, maintenance and cleaning (micro), in order to be free to enjoy the macro.

Micro means I have to figure out how this is going to happen on a day to day basis in my schedule, otherwise it’s just a nice intention. This puts teeth to my intentions. So I plan to organize my home study on Monday morning at 9am and my office on Tues. at 10 am. I will pick up around the house every evening before I go to bed. I will review my calender every morning and evening. I will return phone calls by 4 p.m. every day. I will schedule review and reorganizing times as part of a scheduled quarterly day spiritual retreat. All these things must be scheduled or they wont happen. I think you get the idea the macro informs the micro and micro informs the macro so that a change or resolution becomes a reality instead of a good intention. Too often I’ve been like an artist who just start painting and runs out of canvas in the end. The picture doesn’t fit in the limitations of the canvas.

This is not to control me but to set me free. Actually self-control is a good thing and a fruit of the Spirit. I guess I never thought of a resolution that way–self-control.

Too often we treat the fruit of the Spirit or godly virtues as qualities that just happen to us passively without any participation on our parts. But maybe that’s the crime of today: passively waiting to be changed when God has already given us the power and grace to change. Maybe that’s the pop heresy of our day: automatism: that quality life and genuine love for others will just happen us. Maybe God’s grace gives us the ability to act and respond.

Isn’t that what responsibility means? “Able to respond, response-able.” Peter the Apostle stated boldly that “God has given us by His power everything that pertains to truly living and becoming godly” (2 Pet 1:3). Then he says, because of this truth we are to “make every effort” or respond to God’s grace and power.

So here we go into the New Year, with new hope and changes for our lives, that by God’s grace are truly possible. We must dare and plan to become new and different by God’s grace. The old has gone, the new has come. Let’s respond to His love and live inside the painting.

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?