Body transformation - "fake it until you make it"

You may wonder, Won’t the body naturally change its habits if the heart is transformed? While a change of heart is primary, the outer change is not automatic. You work on inner and outer change concurrently, and each process informs the other. While we guard our heart and readjust it as needed, we also need to confront the body in its regimented habits.

We teach our body to “fake it till we make it” (as the twelve-step saying goes) to help it behave according to what the heart is learning. To live a life of faking it is wrong, of course, and so we’re always working through heart issues. While I’m learning to pray for the coworker who exasperates me (and therefore let my heart be changed), I ask God to help me regularly form my lips into a smile at that coworker. If I do this, I will be amazed at how that smile makes it easier for my heart to adjust. 

TODAY’S EXPERIMENT - Pick one of your body movements that doesn’t reflect the love, joy, and peace of Jesus. Don’t start with something too big. Something like tapping your foot in impatience will do. Choose what you could do instead. Perhaps you could try the humble stance of putting your hands behind your back. This makes it easier for the heart to be humble, which in turn makes it easier to stand that way. 

At the same time, refocus your thoughts (and heart), perhaps praying Psalm 23 as we did earlier. Even as you theoretically “fake it,” you can be authentically honest: “I’m operating on the theory that you, O Lord, really are my Shepherd, that you have provided everything I need, even though I have no idea what’s going on.” 

Picture that sheep lying in the green pasture so content, not needing a thing, even as you wait anxiously at a traffic signal thinking of your child waiting in the cold, as you lie on a gurney in an emergency room waiting for the nurse to return with the pain medication, or as you wait in line wondering why all these people chose to come to the same store at the same moment.

 

How do we get control of our body?

RETRAINING THE BODY - Spiritual transformation into Christlikeness is the process of forming the inner world of the human self in such a way that it takes on the character of the inner being of Jesus himself. The result is that the “outer” life of the individual increasingly becomes a natural expression of the inner reality of Jesus and his teachings. Doing what he said and did increasingly becomes a part of who we are. 

But for this to happen, our body must increasingly be poised to do what is good and to refrain from what is evil. The inclinations to wrongdoing that inhabit our body’s parts must be eliminated. Then the body becomes a primary ally in Christlikeness. 

Without the elimination of such inclinations, the part of our character that lives in our body carries us away. James observed the incredible power of the tongue to stir up the inclinations of the body. It is perhaps the last bodily part to submit to goodness and rightness. No one can tame it. Physical violence is nearly always introduced by verbal violence (see James 3:5-6). 

It is only as we habitually subject our tongue to the grace of God as an instrument reserved to do his will that grace comes literally to inhabit and govern it. And when that happens the effects spread throughout the body. The proper retraining and nurturing of the body is essential to Christlikeness. When our heart (will, spirit) comes to new life in God, the old “programs” still run, primarily in our body. “Sin dwells within me, that is, in my flesh” (Romans 7:18, PAR). 

But when the law or force of the spirit of life that is in Christ Jesus becomes a real presence in our body, that opens the way to liberation from the force of sin in our bodily parts (see Romans 7:23). The result is that the body increasingly becomes a major part of the hidden source from which our lives immediately flow.

 

Our body speaks volumes about us

Who we really are inside is communicated by our manner—what our body is “ready” to do at any minute. The way we stand, the look on our face, the height of our shoulders tells people the condition of our heart. Our body speaks volumes about us. “The look” is subtle but reveals a great deal. 

Jesus talks about “looking to lust” (see Matthew 5:28), and a body trained to do so can scarcely not do it. Others steeped in disgust have trained their face to look with disgust, and that is noticed, especially by those younger, less powerful, or somehow subservient on the social ladder. 

Sometimes people send mixed signals. They try to “act like a Christian,” but their body betrays them. When I’m not around anyone I need to impress, what would it take to get me to yell at someone? What would have to happen for my hand and arm to hit someone? 

TODAY’S EXPERIMENT - Stand before a full-length mirror. Imagine for a moment you’re speaking to someone you dislike. Let your body move into its natural pose for this. Do not mask your true feelings. Examine your body to see if you’ve arranged it in some way to protect yourself—perhaps your arms are crossed. Notice the position of your eyebrows. Are they raised or lowered? Knitted? Pay attention to how your mouth is set or how your tongue is positioned within your mouth. 

Start over. Let’s say you are now facing someone from whom you wish a favor. Position yourself. Notice what your eyes, mouth, and arms tell you. 

Start again and recall a stressful issue. Look at yourself. Where do you carry your stress? Some bear it in their shoulders, hunching them. Others find their stomachs tightening. 

Speak to God about the ways you’ve trained your body. Admit the underlying settled attitudes that your body favors. If you’re confused, ask God, who is “acquainted with all [your] ways” (Psalm 139:3), to help you. God can inform us of these things gently.

 

Your body dominion - to enhance or harm?

THE BODY’S ROLE IN SPIRITUAL FORMATION - The body lies at the center of the spiritual life. It is potential energy, and to access that energy is the constant human goal and problem. If there is gasoline in my tank, I can liberate the energy in it and make it do the work of moving my car. 

Therefore, my body is the primary place of my dominion and my responsibility. As I proceed in life, first I take dominion over my body itself (eye movement, voice, motion of limbs, and so on). 

But very quickly I attempt dominion over others, who may have organized their desires contrary to my own. So I experience destructive emotions, especially fear, anger, envy, jealousy, and resentment (example: Cain). These may, in time, develop into settled attitudes of hostility, contempt, or indifference. 

Such attitudes make me ready to harm others, and these attitudes quickly settle into my body. There they become more or less overt tendencies to act without thinking in ways that harm others or myself. If left unchecked, they will rule the rest of my life and will constantly inject poison into my social world and personal relations. 

Most of what is called character (good or bad) in normal human life consists in what our bodies are or are not “at the ready” to do in specific situations. These “readinesses” govern our responses and are seen by observant people who then determine how to react to us. 

For usual human beings in usual circumstances, their body runs their life. Contrary to the words of Jesus, life is, for them, not more than food, nor the body more than clothing (see Matthew 6:25). Their time and energy is almost wholly devoted to how their body looks, smells, and feels, and to how it can be used to meet ego needs such as admiration, sexual gratification, and power over others. That is a perversion of the role of the body in life as God intended it, and it results in “death,” in alienation from God and the loss of all we have invested our lives in (see Galatians 6:8).

 

Retraining our thoughts, feelings & will

Disciplines create space for the retraining of our thoughts, feelings, and will. We see ourselves as we really are, and the games of duplicity are over. 

One of my disciplines of service is volunteering at a drop-in center for the homeless. When I began, I had a heart for the homeless. Yet in my times of solitude, I saw that I was sometimes rude to clients—stepping in front of them, interrupting them, even talking down to them. So I confessed these things. Realizing I needed to learn compassion from Jesus, I began to study and meditate on gospel passages I’d barely noticed before. 

While serving there, I learn to practice the presence of God as I fold towels and load washers and dryers. I learn to listen to people ramble or complain (submission) and pray for them. I gain community with fellow volunteers who provide me a steady influence of compassion and toughness of purpose. I celebrate with God and others many times when someone holds down a job, finds a reasonable apartment, or kicks a habit. I bond with God by weeping over the deaths of clients and the births of drug-addicted babies. 

This service plays out in a discipline of secrecy. Most clients don’t know what I do for a living or that I have a “real job.” Many people in our middle-class town think our volunteers are wasting their time, as do the Christians in town because the center is not a specifically Christian organization. There’s no glory in it—just the wearing of clothes that have been stained by laundry bleach. Yet this place of service has become a place I meet Jesus, who nudges me to love the person in front of me. I can never give as much as I receive there. 

TODAY’S EXPERIMENT - What sort of discipline has God been nudging you toward: solitude, silence, community, prayer, confession, service, secrecy, frugality, fasting, study, meditation, worship, or celebration? The way God may suggest you practice it might look very different from how someone else practices it. Ask God what he has in mind for your next step.

 

Spiritual disciplines: overcoming self-deception

HOW DISCIPLINES HELP - As the will is surrendered, we come to grips with our fallen character, which positions every element of our being against God. We must move out of this entanglement to single-minded focus upon doing the will of God in everything, distracted by nothing. Stepping free of entanglements helps us overcome duplicity. 

The person who intends to will what God wills begins with what God has said he wills. For example, we know it is not God’s will to have guile (sneakiness) and malice. Then let us decide today never to mislead people and never to do or say things merely to cause pain or harm. 

That may sound like a small part of identifying with God’s will, but lying and malice are foundational sins. They make many other sins possible, including family fights and international warfare. How do we cause the duplicity and malice that are buried in our will and character to surface and be dealt with? 

A great help is spiritual disciplines, for example solitude (being alone with God for long periods of time), fasting (learning freedom from food and how God directly nourishes us), worship (adoration of God), and service (doing good for others with no thought of ourselves). Disciplines make room for the Word and the Spirit to work in us. 

They permit destructive feelings (veiled by standard excuses and accepted practices) to be perceived and dealt with as our will rather than God’s will. Those feelings are normally clothed in layers of self-deception and rationalization. They enslave the will, which coerces the mind to conceal or rationalize what is really going on. 

Your mind will really “talk to you” when you deny fulfillment of your desires (for example, solitude denies others’ company; fasting denies eating). As we practice solitude or service, we may find that our “righteous judgments” of others are really ways of putting them down and lifting us up. Our extreme busyness may be revealed as inability to trust God or unwillingness to give others a chance to contribute. Our readiness to give our opinions may turn out to be contempt for the thoughts and words of others or simply a willingness to shut them up.

 

Choosing the exhilaration of the divine drama over boring lives

Progressing in this forward movement from surrender to abandonment to contentment to participation is the mysterious secret of wise saints, some of whom you and I may have encountered. (We might consider them to be the people we want to be like “when we grow up.”)

Believe that you may become one of them. As you do, your life will never, ever be boring because you’ll understand that interacting with God creates a daily divine drama that makes the average life in our culture look boring.

TODAY’S EXPERIMENT - Consider what it would look like for you to move forward on this continuum of identifying your will with God’s: surrender . . . abandonment . . . contentment . . . participation. Ask God for grace and wisdom to help you discern what your next steps could be, including the use of any spiritual disciplines:
-Confessing roadblocks
-Practicing community with those on this path or those who will stretch you on this path
-Serving in a way that makes abandonment a reality
-Practicing solitude to surrender yourself regularly 

In self-examination processes such as these, we must avoid turning our eyes back on ourselves with recurrent analysis. This is not helpful. Nor is wondering if we’ll ever get to participation. Such self-preoccupation can, in fact, keep us spinning so that we

are not wholly preoccupied with God in our lives. It’s better to simply ask God, What do I need to know? Perhaps what is needed is to simply believe this progression is possible, to believe that you can participate in the divine drama of accomplishing God’s will in our world in some way. Here’s the reality: Partnering with God in this way on a day-to-day basis can be much more interesting and engaging than any movie you’ve ever seen.