What Got Us Here…

It has been said that the music we love most at age 23 becomes our musical heart language—the style that connects most deeply with us for the rest of our lives. That may be less true today as our playlists grow more eclectic, but the principle still sheds light on other parts of our development.

The solution we discover for our problems around age 23 can easily become our lifelong go-to strategy for solving problems.

For many suburban strivers working their way into adulthood, those emerging years teach us a powerful lesson:

Self-discipline is the key to maturity and success.

And to be fair, that insight often works.

For many of the “restless” people I talk with—including myself—discipline, productivity, and efficiency carry us a long way. Through our twenties and into our thirties we learn to optimize our time, sharpen our skills, and produce things we feel proud of.

But somewhere along the way, many of us run into a wall.

More discipline—though less discipline is often a bad idea—is not necessarily going to get us where we want to go next. You’ve probably heard the phrase:

“What got you here won’t get you there.”

As a church, we’re studying the first three chapters of Romans. In those chapters, Paul makes something increasingly clear: the fundamental problem of the world is not a lack of discipline.

It is a contagion called sin.

The world’s problem isn’t that people are lazy.
It’s that the world is broken.

That distinction matters.

Many people feel conviction when they think about their spiritual lives and immediately conclude: I’m just lazy.

But is that really the problem?

When I read Romans 1–3, I don’t see a lazy world. I see a broken one. And getting the diagnosis right matters, because the right diagnosis leads to the right prescription.

So consider the question:

Does the world simply need more effort?
Or does the world need healing?

Now turn that question toward yourself.

Is your struggle with spiritual disciplines really about laziness? Or could it be that years of living in a broken world have left parts of your soul numb, depleted, or discouraged?

Sometimes when we finally slow down, we don’t feel peace—we feel resentment, anxiety, or grief rising to the surface.

Those aren’t signs of laziness.

Those are wounds.

Yes, it’s possible to have a little spiritual flab built up around those wounds. But if you try to “work out” your spiritual life without first tending to the injury, what happens?

You often make the wound worse.

Imagine pulling a hamstring. Your behavior changes immediately. You walk differently. You run differently. You rest.

You wouldn’t call yourself lazy for not sprinting on an injured leg—unless you refused treatment.

Once the hamstring heals, you can return to running, training, even pushing your body hard. A healthy leg can handle tremendous strain.

But healing must come first.

The same is true of the heart.

A wounded heart pushed too hard will only deepen its wounds.
But a healed heart can persevere, stretch, and endure because it is healthy.

Which leads to an important question:

How does the heart actually heal so that it can grow?

Henry Cloud and John Townsend offer a beautifully simple answer in their book How People Grow:

Grace.
Truth.
Time.

We need real relationships that offer grace in the face of our brokenness.
We need real relationships that offer truth in the face of our blindness, foolishness, and ignorance.
And we need time.

Time alone doesn’t heal wounds.

But time + grace + truth does.

As a church, that’s exactly what we’re trying to build. Our entire ministry is centered on helping people find their way back to God—to experience his healing presence and to join him in his mission.

We believe in the transforming truth of the Word of God.
We believe in the power of real friendship to extend grace.
And we believe that, over time, grace and truth together reshape the human heart.

Maybe you really do struggle with laziness.

But my guess is that your heart probably needs healing more than your back needs a whipping.

If you made it to the end of this post, I’d love to hear from you. Let me know how this connects with your own story this week.