It’s Time to Dance
If you’ve every tried ballroom dancing, you’ve learned a simple rule — someone always needs to lead. In our evangelism strategies, we generally make ourselves the leader in the gospel…
Years ago, I worked on a staff team at a local hospital. We had a lot of fun together and we also found ways to keep morale high. One day, I arrived at work to discover a gold foil box of fine chocolates waiting on my desk with a personal note reading, “Vicki, for All you do! Thanks.”
I couldn’t wait to dig in and to share the pure enjoyment of what awaited me. That is, until I opened the shiny box. The contents revealed the true nature of the gift. Each perforated cup held its own treasure: a stone, dryer lint, mulch, dead flies, a dog food kibble… you get the picture. I had forgotten that we were also in the middle of a staff prank-war, to which I had contributed heavily. Insert Forrest Gump quote here, “Life is like a box of chocolates; you never know what you’re going to get.”
Christian formation can reveal surprises as well. It is easier for us to keep ourselves looking like gold on the outside than it is for us to allow God to purify what is on the inside. As we walk with others in making disciples, I would like to encourage us to take a long, hard look at what we are discipling toward.
Our Goal: God’s Image
Biblical discipleship will always point us back toward an inner disposition of godliness. Our aim is the restoration of God’s image in us. We need not sit endlessly in a state of depravity. Rather, the Scriptures challenge us to be conformed to the image of Christ. What does that look like? It means continually holding up my heart against the biblical picture of the Lord.
Failure is a Chance to Reflect
A friend recently told me he didn’t think I experienced anger. Not true. I can remember a handful of seasons in my life where anger seemed to live in my story. One of those seasons came when a daughter decided she had become her own authority figure. At just five years of age, she began a pattern of pushing back toward all of my instructions, “After you finish your breakfast I want you to go upstairs and clean your room” was answered with, “no, I’m going to go outside after breakfast to play with Jake (our dog).” Her constant pushback wore on me for weeks until the day I’d had enough. My nervous system lit up and the physicality of my anger came rushing out along with my demanding review of the authority structure in our home. I didn’t touch my daughter, nor spew abusive language, but the quality of my speech and my body language sent a vivid picture that my daughter has never forgotten.
During the same season, an adult’s pattern of failure had brought a great deal of pain and struggle to my life. As someone who could not control the situation, I broke down one day privately and began punching my mattress for all I was worth. Suddenly, the Spirit of God interrupted me with an almost audible message, “Is this who you want to be?” My heart sank, “No, Lord, I want to be like you. I want to display your patience, your peace, and your lovingkindness toward others.” Compared to the fruit the Holy Spirit desires to produce in our lives, I was failing.
That season is now twenty years in the rearview, and God has continued to conform me according to His image. I repented for my lack of control toward my daughter and found peace in another situation that was contributing to my frustration. I’ve seen God’s transformation as I have walked through other seasons no less stressful, but have deepened in my conviction that God’s Spirit needs to be my constant companion and my help. I’ve developed a “Him first” mentality, as He has become my “go-to” in anger, in fear, and in uncertainty. He is my closest friend and companion. Nowadays, I am better able to process hard things with the Lord first and to avoid collateral relational damage.
It’s not About our Comfort
A plea toward the soul-work I needed is commonly expressed in the maxim, “Bitterness is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die.” This concept may hold truth, but is our goal in transformation to relieve our pain and to provide for our comfort? No! Our formation is not toward our comfort, but toward restoring God’s image in us.
More often than not, choosing Him first will be very uncomfortable. It may hurt deeply for a season. But in the end, it allows us to share in God’s holiness. Hebrews 12 promises a harvest of righteousness and peace to those who have been trained by His discipline. To be transformed into God’s image, our heart-posture should always be, “does my heart line up with the image of my Creator and closest friend right now?” I can personally testify that this “Him first” policy has been the most beneficial conviction God has grown in my life.
When we walk with others in disciplemaking, we must continually move toward the attitude of “Him first.” As we draw close to Him, we must give Him primacy, surrendering control to the God who created us, who loves us, and who made us to bear His image. We pray there will be fewer surprises within us, and that the shiny gold wrapping people see on the outside is more and more representative of what God is growing on the inside. They increasingly know “what they are going to get.”
“And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.” (2 Corinthians 3:18, ESV).
