What Lies Beneath
The Complex, Mysterious, Messy Location of True Character Formation
Over the last few posts, we’ve been digging into The Discipleship Dilemma, one of the Three Primary Problems that make Christian spiritual formation in the modern age challenging.
To become more like Jesus, we’re invited to know two people very well: Jesus and ourselves.
Getting to know Jesus is assumed and accepted in many circles.
However, the quest for self-knowledge, self-awareness, and self-understanding is often ignored, rejected, or outright condemned in many communities. Therein lies the dilemma.
The idea that exploring our stories, habits, thought patterns, behaviors, assumptions, desires, motivations, relationships, etc., is “bad” or selfish pervades everything from various worship songs and sermons to many traditions.
The fear, of course, is that engaging in self-exploration automatically leads to self-worship. We’re taught to simply fix our eyes on Jesus and somehow avoid idolizing ourselves.
As I wrote a few posts ago, it’s ironic that God so desperately wants to be with us that He went to unthinkable, extraordinary lengths to dwell with us… in our hearts. As Paul wrote, unlike the garden, tabernacle, or temple of old, God’s new temple is the human person. And as Dallas Willard noted, the church (not the institutions but the people who are enamored with Jesus) is “the dwelling place of God on earth.”
If your heart is worth being God’s dwelling place, surely it’s worth exploring. And, paradoxically, when we deal authentically with our own hearts, we become freer to love God and others more deeply.
Back to the dilemma: this accepted modern self-rejection (which is not the same thing as self-denial) shows up in subtle and overt ways.
The “Selfless” Servant
We’ve all probably known someone who serves themselves to death. They’re constantly helping, supporting, giving, and volunteering. However, when the time comes for them to be served (because of illness, distress, grief, or exhaustion), they politely refuse or downplay their circumstances, and that’s only if they make their needs known.
They believe (as do many around them) that they are wonderful saints, giving without a thought for themselves. In actuality, many of these well-intentioned people are operating under the idea that to love their neighbor is to reject themselves. Some are attempting to earn the favor of God or others. Others serve to cover up their hidden self-loathing.
The Perpetual Performer
Call them “type-A,” “high-performers,” or “driven to succeed”—these highly respected and sought-after talents memorized Colossians 3:23-24 as kids and never looked back. Generally unaware of the ideas and desires that drive them, their identity is found in their metrics, successes, and goals, be it business, evangelism, family image, church planting, number of likes, size of network, and on and on. Performance is the drug, and we tend to sanctify it by calling it some form of Christian service.
We are to do good deeds and work hard. But the perpetual performer’s heart isn’t yearning for success out of a sense of purpose and rest in the King and His Kingdom, but rather from unknown and confusing forces that drive her to a life that is anything but an easy yoke and a light burden.
The Lost Legalist
When our hearts are trained in the idea that they aren’t worth exploring, it inevitably leads to insecurity, loss of identity, and sick souls. The heart responds as we might expect—by attempting to control something… anything. Deep, story-formed insecurity often leads to power grabs and rule-making. Untold numbers of squabbles and fights in marriages, families, and churches worldwide originate not from the supposed infractions but from the unconscious insecurities that rule so many souls.
And unless we’re willing, guided, and supported in our quest to understand why we’re legalists, our hearts will continue their desperate search for security and affirmation by creating and reinforcing unhealthy rules and regulations, whether in our relationships or in institutional structures. And yes, even in our theology.
I’m familiar with these three examples because I’ve been these three examples.
The Human OS
One of the premises here is that there is a layer of this wonderful, sometimes tragic, mystical, complex thing called the human heart underneath our conscious belief systems.
If we picture our hearts as roots reaching down into various layers of soil, we often assume our intellectual beliefs in God, Jesus, the Bible, reality, people, and ourselves are the bedrock. Sometimes that’s the case, but not nearly as often as we’d like.
The bottom layer of this soil is where we find ideas and desires—two powerful forces that typically work at the subconscious level. These layers of the human person function like an operating system—they work in the background, silently powering and governing us, generally without us realizing it.
We take our biological and habitual “operating systems” for granted. Let’s take driving a car, for example. Once we learn to operate a vehicle and become proficient at navigating traffic, we no longer expend any mental or emotional energy doing so. Sometimes we’re so wrapped up in other things that we don’t even remember driving from point A to point B.
Involuntary body functions such as breathing, heartbeat, and digestion work the same way. We rarely pay attention to these quiet forces that keep us alive unless something is wrong with them.
So it is with our underlying ideas and desires. We rarely acknowledge them unless something “breaks,” and even then, we often do whatever we can to avoid examining the deeper recesses of our hearts.
However, exploring the bedrock of our hearts is the work of a deep disciple, and it’s where Jesus longs to meet us. It’s where He operated when He walked the earth, and where He continues to do so today.
What Lies Beneath
This is why modern approaches to discipleship are often good but may not be particularly formative. Discipleship courses abound and primarily consist of introducing students to basic biblical truths, encouraging Scripture memorization, and fostering healthy habits such as Bible reading, prayer, and worship services.
However, in some cases, once a person has attended a 6 or 10-week discipleship course, they are considered “discipled” and enter into service or ministry in their community. Other types of groups assemble for no more than six months or a year, then are forced to split and multiply.
Once again, we see the underlying idea (unconscious assumption) at work here that human beings are simply “brains on sticks.” If we just accumulate the right information, we’ve arrived. This idea remains at work in virtually every educational level of modern society—from elementary school through seminary.
The problem is that discipleship isn’t primarily about information but character formation—being “conformed to the image of Christ.” Character formation involves the intake of information, for sure, but it’s far more than that.
It has to be, considering that the West has seen some of its most treasured and valued Bible teachers and apologists disqualify themselves from ministry in recent years due to character issues. And yet, at least in America, we continue to idolize the biblical intellectual without knowing his or her character, or in some tragic cases, knowing but not caring.
At its core, character formation is about the transformation of these ideas and desires that sit in the largely unconscious, base layers of the human heart.
That begs the question: how are unconscious (and perhaps unknown) elements of the human heart transformed?
The first step is simple. Let’s say your physical heart has been beating along for years now, and you’ve largely been unconscious of its presence. Recently, you’ve noticed that it skips a beat every minute or so, or perhaps it’s racing along a little too happily for your tastes. What do you do?
Chances are, you pay more attention to it, and most likely go get it checked out at the doctor’s office. You examine it. You explore the reasons why it’s acting up. You realize it’s time to do a deeper dive into your “operating system.”
The first step to becoming a deep disciple is a deeper “heart” awareness.
But if we’re largely governed by hidden ideas and desires, how do we mine for them?
The Eight Indicators
Fortunately, God has provided a wonderful array of signposts that guide us to explore and examine the more mysterious parts of our hearts with Him. I call them the Eight Indicators: our thought patterns, emotions, behaviors, relationships, words, health, and how we steward time and money.
We’ll be digging into these much more in the coming weeks. But if you’re feeling courageously curious, just pick one indicator this week and prayerfully explore it.
For example, pause, step back, and reflect on how you address yourself in your inner thought life. Are you kind? Gentle? Condemning? Berating? Arrogant? How does your inner thought life compare to how Jesus might speak to you?
Your heart matters. Your story matters. And the life of a deep disciple is one that, through gentle and patient heart exploration, grows to love God, others, self, and creation and culture with ever-increasing passion and sacrificial actions.
