The Rest of Your Story

I am writing this month about a new ministry offering we are launching this month called Transforming Together.  I am personally very excited about what God is going to do in our lives as we experience spiritual transformation together through this monthly gathering.  For many years I have loved how God has brought healing and freedom to hundreds of people here in the Omaha area through the ministries of Cleansing Stream and Restoring the Foundations.  But I have always been troubled by the reality that for many this new way of experiencing God never became a lifestyle that resulted in people living out their true identity and purpose.  I believe God wants that to change for you and me beginning this month.  

 

As a way of communicating God’s desire for us, I want to share a little bit of my own story with you.  I am writing this on Tuesday morning, January 1, 2019. In addition to it being New Year’s morning, it also happens to be the 39-year anniversary of my quitting smoking, a life habit that it is often difficult to break.  On December 31, 1979, I smoked my last cigarette of the day and as I went to bed, I threw what was left of the pack in the garbage.  When I awoke the next morning, I had the urges to smoke but never did smoke cigarettes or anything else again. Through the years I often said I quit smoking as one of my New Year’s resolutions, a statement that is true as far as it goes.  But because the declaration is without context, it is also misleading.  Since that time, I have made many lifestyle choices, even New Year’s resolutions, that I have failed to keep simply by deciding.  So why are we sometimes successful but many times not?  

 

Again, taken at face value, the statement suggests it was an act of the will alone that led to a personal accomplishment.  But the Lord has shown me in recent years that there was much more to it than a simple act of the will alone. As the radio personality Paul Harvey used to say, “here is the rest of the story.”  While I was 25 years old when I quit, I was only 15 years old when I started, not even of legal age to be smoking.  A number of my friends at that time had started smoking and to fit in I started as well.  Even though I was miserable in the beginning, it soon became a habit and then I was addicted to the nicotine.  As the amount I smoked continued to increase, I made new friends and added drug and alcohol use to the mix.  These too soon became habits and it wasn’t long before I was abusing tobacco, illicit drugs and large amounts of alcohol.  Though still a young man in my early 20’s, I was a wreck physically from the abuse of all 3, being overweight, eating poorly and abusing my body with all kinds of toxins.  Intuitively, I knew I was in trouble but any attempts at moderation or to quit entirely proved elusive.  Finally, my body had enough and Memorial Day weekend 1979 I was hospitalized with acute pancreatitis, with my pancreas swollen enough it was life-threatening.   In a story for another time, the Lord healed me physically and from my addiction to drugs and alcohol.  Though I was still hooked on nicotine when I left the hospital.  

 

In spite of the miraculous healing of my pancreas and the related freedom from drugs and alcohol, physically I was still in very poor physical health.  I was very overweight, smoked, tired easily and my diet was filled with many of the wrong types of foods.  In the days that followed my release from the hospital, I attended AA meetings, said goodbye, literally, to all my drinking friends, and spent considerable time reflecting on where I was going to go in life?  To return to my old life was a sure death sentence but I wasn’t sure how to move forward because I really didn’t know anything else? 

 

Looking back, I can see God’s hand in the “chance” discoveries I made and divine appointments with people who had the information I needed at just the right time.  In God’s providence, I ended up joining a newly completed YMCA near my home in the late summer of 1979.  This life decision, probably more than any other, was a major turning point in my life.  Not only did it give me something to do with my time but I became connected with a large group of people who were already experiencing or were on their way to experiencing, the life I desired for myself, physical health and wellness.  As I made new friendships, some collegial, some close and personal, I began sharing life in a natural way with people who were encouraging me to achieve healthy life-goals.  I was learning from them and they were sometimes learning from me, while we were together living the values and behaviors that supported health and vitality.  Over the next couple of years, I regained my health and was able to achieve things in my life athletically I had never dreamed of years earlier.  I was at an optimal weight, swimming 2 miles per night and had no trouble throwing in a 5-mile run or 60-mile bike ride when I felt like it.  These years were formative for me in that I have continued to belong to a fitness club, and have worked out 3-5 times per week since the summer of 1979 in spite of many lesser and larger changes in life.  

 

If we return to New Year’s Eve 1979, and my decision to quit smoking, it has quite a different feel doesn’t it?  There were so many prior decisions that set me up for success that the idea that it was simply willpower that enabled me to quit is laughable.  And I bring all of this up now because I believe it has direct application to our spiritual lives.  Spiritual transformation and the life we all seek as followers of Christ takes more than an act of the will.  It is an integral part but very few will experience long-term success by hearing God’s truth and deciding to obey it.  Using the above example from my own life I want to use Dallas Willard’s transformation framework (VIM) to highlight a few of the components essential to our experiencing life transformation that lasts.  

 

Vision- It isn’t enough to be sick and tired of the life we are currently experiencing, though that is often where the desire for something different begins.  I would suggest we need to have a positive vision of the future, of what life can become if we realize our goals.  And it can’t be a casual “I wish life was different” but a genuine hunger that turns to belief as we begin to experience positive life change.  Changing lifelong habits and ungodly ways of thinking takes a vision big enough and desirable enough that it enables us to persevere through the resistance and hardship we are sure to experience.  Jesus says He came in order that we might experience the “superabundant life” (John 10:10) with Him in His Kingdom.  Anything less than that experience is to live beneath our position.    

 

Intention- This is where engagement of the will comes in.   We must decide not once but continually, as a lifestyle, to pursue “life with, and for, King Jesus in His Kingdom.”  The abundant life will not just happen because we want it to, nor will we experience by seeking it once in a while.  Success will come as we persevere over time.  

 

Means- Finally, there are all of the life habits that put us in a place where we can receive God’s transforming grace.  Things like meditating on God’s Word, abiding in God’s love and His Word, walking in the Spirit, prayer, personal worship and practicing forgiveness.  We don’t transform ourselves by practicing the spiritual disciplines but we can create the environment for the Holy Spirit to work transformation in our lives.   

 

In addition to the spiritual disciplines and life habits above, I want to highlight the necessity of being in relationship with other believers who are seeking to live the same values and goals as yourself.  People who will inspire you to change, encourage you to make the hard choices and walk in friendship with you as we all practice living the one another’s of Scripture.  In both the natural and spiritual realm, it would be difficult to overstate the essential nature of being connected with a group of people who are going to point you to Jesus and life in His Kingdom instead of pursuing the world’s values and the American dream.  I am absolutely convinced I would have never experienced the physical recovery I did by reading a book and doing things on my own.  Having that shared experience with others made the difference between success and failure.  

 

Because of my personal experience and our corporate belief that many don’t have access to this kind of community today, God’s Living Stones is going to offer Transforming Together, a relational experience where we experience spiritual transformation together.  While it is designed for people who have been through the Cleansing Stream seminar/retreat and/or Restoring the Foundations prayer ministry, anyone can participate in our monthly gatherings and community blog.  Our focus will not be on presenting a lot of supplemental teaching but on giving practical instruction for sustained life change.  If you feel like you have not yet experienced the superabundant life Jesus died to give us, this opportunity is for you!  We will be meeting the third Tuesday of each month throughout 2019 in the Heritage Chapel at Thanksgiving Church, 3702 370 Plaza, Bellevue, NE from 6:30-8:00 pm.   

 

Hope to see you for our first meeting on Tuesday night, January 15th.  I can’t think of a better way to start off 2019 – let’s Transform Together!