Let’s Rethink the Way We Think

Circumstances, commitments, and surprises (the unpleasant kind) overwhelmed me the past six weeks. I had too much to do and too little time to do it. Forces from competing goals pulled me in opposite directions.

Two weeks ago I arrived home from a retreat in Colorado, physically and emotionally drained. But I woke up the next morning in an adrenalin-induced frenzy, desperate to prepare five new sessions for a retreat that began in four short days.

The retreat topic was Hearing God. I’ve been waiting (impatiently) for years to offer a retreat on how to recognize God’s voice, but commitments (and bad surprises) had frustrated my attempts to plan it. I was woefully behind and anxious about the few remaining hours I had for preparation.

When I woke up that feverish morning, I sensed God say to me:

“If your retreat teachings are the greatest talks you’ve ever given, but no one hears my voice, the retreat will be a dismal failure. If you give the worst talks you’ve ever given, but people actually hear me speak, the retreat will be a roaring success.”

I sensed God invite me to take two days off from any retreat work—half of my limited, remaining prep time—and simply to give “my” retreat to him. The word seemed unwise, irresponsible, and a little crazy.

Because everything about Christianity seems crazy

Our biggest problem in our Christian walk lies in our distorted thinking. In fact, every single problem we have arises from our wrong interpretations. Spiritual rebirth is a radical retooling of our minds.

Christianity means a profoundly different grasp of reality. It means that circumstances, events, disappointments—and even our deepest woundings—all reflect a deeper undercurrent of spiritual forces; a revolutionary reality that requires spiritual-eye-transplants to recognize. Not just another pair of Walmart reading glasses.

Worldly wisdom dictates that ministries adopt the latest growth strategy; it orders bloggers to leverage social media for greater impact, and it compels spouses to learn their love languages.

All that worldly advice contains seeds of wisdom, but it also—simultaneously and insidiously—waters the weeds of our inner-destruction.

Our default human inclination is to operate as though success in life (from ministries to marriages) depends on our efforts. But the lesson of Gideon’s three hundred soldiers is that success depends solely on God, and it is precisely in our weakness that he is strong.

For the Hearing God retreat, I needed a transformation of mind, not more hours of preparation.

Jesus always attacks our natural thinking

And I mean he attacks it. Head on. He shocks us, astounds us, pleads with us, and convicts us. Why do you think he was crucified? Didn’t he just preach a message of love? No! He preached a message of complete abandonment of the way the world thinks. He said:

• If we really want to be great, we must stoop before stinking, dirty feet.
• Whoever wants the richest of lives must totally and deliberately lose their own.
• If we wish for a flooding of wisdom we must concede our overflow of folly.
• Whoever wishes to feel worthwhile must admit to God their unworthiness.
• The way up is down.

Everything Jesus said was revolutionary. He was an anarchist about every “normal” operating principal of life. What makes sense to the world makes no sense inside the gospel; and the message of the gospel is sheer craziness to the world.

It’s not an evolution

Jesus never offers a nuanced perspective. He isn’t a vitamin supplement. He doesn’t merely spice up a tasteless dish. Instead of adding a dash of reality to our lives, he crucifies and buries our old perceptions to let his spiritual reality be born into new being.

Romans 12:2 says, “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind.” Transformed” means metamorphosis, like when a caterpillar becomes a butterfly.

We need must hold a funeral service for the earthbound caterpillar of our worldly wisdom so that a metamorphosed spiritual mind can be born, sprout wings, and fly.

My limited retreat preparation lacked everything I’d ever studied on public speaking. Instead of hearing eloquence in my teaching, people heard God in their personal prayer. I think I did too.

Sam