Personal Transformation

I’m in the midst of a very helpful and challenging book about how we grow in our faith. It’s called The Leader’s Journey by Jim Herrington, R. Robert Creech, and Trisha Taylor. Here are a few quotes from the book:

Beliefs about personal transformation

1. Personal transformation happens best as an inside-out process of committing to obey Christ.
2. Personal transformation happens best in the context of a loving community that extends grace and truth.
3. Personal transformation happens best when we develop a reflective lifestyle.

Personal transformation happens best as an inside-out process. This assertion may seem obvious, but we often seek to change our lives by focusing only on the external things demanding change; we blame other people when things do not go well. This reaction is hard-wired into the human species. When confronted with their sin in the garden, Adam and Eve both sought to deflect responsibility (Genesis 3:8-13).

But we’re talking about more than just taking personal responsibility. Individuals often take personal responsibility but redouble their efforts at what they are already doing. If you keep doing what you’ve been doing, you’ll keep getting what you’ve been getting. If what we are doing is producing our current results, then working harder at the same thing is going to produce more of the same undesired results! (6-7)

Personal transformation happens best in the context of a loving community that extends grace and truth. . . When Jesus encountered Thomas’s doubt following his resurrection, he did not lash out in anger: He responded with grace (John 20:27). Judgment, criticism, guilt, or shame can produce short-term change, but meaningful, long-term, inside-out change is nurtured by grace. Creating an environment where an individual experiences acceptance in spite of failure allows personal transformation to take root. (8-9)

Personal transformation happens best in the context of a reflective lifestyle. The classic disciplines of the Christian faith – worship, solitude, fasting, prayer, silence, and study – are essential to the formation of Jesus’ character in our lives. We join a growing number of voices (Richard Foster, Celebration of Discipline; Douglas Rumford, SoulShaping; Dallas Willard, Hearing God and The Spirit of the Disciplines; and others) acknowledging that our mechanistic worldview has resulted in the compartmentalization of these disciplines. Marginalizing these practices robs them of the power in our lives.

Rather than living a reflective life characterized by the classic spiritual disciplines, far too often we live a frantically busy life that occasionally has daily quiet time. As we try to get some control over all the things that pull at us, God is assigned to the “spiritual” or “Sunday” part of our lives, rather than permeating all that we do. Consider: Do you have a prayer life, or a life of prayer? Occasions of fasting, or a lifestyle of fasting? Do you relegate Jesus to a quiet-time encounter early in the morning, or engage in a reflective lifestyle that seeks to know Jesus’ presence in every moment of the day? (11)