What Sort of Condition Are You In?

Conditioning. If you're a personal trainer or a personal trainee, conditioning might look like getting up at the crack of dawn, donning some workout clothes and a solid pair of kicks, and hitting the track. You're probably watching what you eat, getting plenty of sleep, and monitoring your results. Your hobbies might include things that supplement your workouts: playing basketball or hiking. And you might be preaching the gospel of great health to others wherever you go. If you're our dog, conditioning is not so complex: you jump up every time the phone rings because you know the pizza guy always calls before he shows up at the front door. It's that simple.

The difference between a personal trainer's conditioning and Luci's conditioning is Luci's conditioning does nothing for her reactivity to other dogs. It may prepare her for the arrival of a pizza crust treat, but it won't keep her from losing her mind when another dog is within twenty feet of her. It won't prevent her jumping up on people who don't care to be greeted in such a manner, or sniffing her own farts, or forming puddles of drool unrivaled by any of our previous dogs, or getting the zoomies late at night in our narrow upstairs hallway, or any of her other less desirable behaviors. It's a mere trick, a specific behavioral response to a specific external stimulus. It transforms nothing.

The "conditioning" of a Christian life is much more like that of one who wishes to transform their health, even their life, and maybe its length and quality. It is discipline and a complete change in motivation and perspective; it is dedication and commitment to something --to Someone much larger than ourselves or our own wants. So much more, even than the conditioning of the world's best trainers, the journey of a Christian through this life has at its core a higher power, a richer and more faithful resource, an eternal purpose, and a more glorious guarantee of complete transformation: the Holy Spirit. 

As a child, when I heard God's gospel preached, I responded. Like our dog craving pizza crust, I was lured by the benefits: I wanted to escape hell and I wanted to please the adults around me. But, also like Luci, I really didn't have context: responding to a message and obeying each time my conscience was pricked was my "trick." I was not transformed. 

In later years, I began to see the need for a more comprehensive training program, something that would change me, change my life, change outcomes. I'd begin attending church. I'd crack open my Bible once in a while. I'd pray --sort of; I'd talk to someone I called "God," telling Him how messed up, how unfulfilled I was, and how my life was in ruins. From time to time, I'd even commit to stop drinking or promise to begin hanging out with "church people," each day --sometimes several times a day-- keeping my eyes peeled for results. But like the trainee who jumps on the scales or measures his biceps every day, the moment I didn't see those instantaneous results, the moment the thought of hanging out with church people became less enticing than partying with "friends," my program fell apart. My motivation depended on the fulfillment of my agenda; I was my own resource for discipline and implementation, and transformation was something I believed naturally occurred after doing something right.

When I was forty, I came face to face with a situation I couldn't control. I was weak and it was powerful. I was small and it was big. Transformation wasn't something I was looking for, but something thrust upon me. Like it or not, life was changing; in order to travel this new strip of road, I needed Someone who would have my back, and I turned to the One I knew to be Truth. Before Him I fell, and He began to show me just how wrong I was --not in a way that caused me to fell condemned or silly, but the way a loving father takes a child up in his arms in forgiveness and sets them back down in newness. The Holy Spirit became to me my Comforter and my Guide, encouraging me and leading me in the right direction, developing in me a love for Jesus that I'd never had. I was going to church, I was reading my Bible, I was learning who God is, I was talking and listening to Him, but there was more. There was change happening in me, change that behavioral modifications can facilitate, but not the depth of change they can bring about. There was a response to external stimuli --like Luci's response to a ringing phone, a change in patterns --like that of one seeking physical transformation, but there was the power and presence of the Holy Spirit and, by God's grace, a surrender to His conditioning and its results that only He can provoke.

So, where are you in your conditioning? Where are you in this journey toward health and life and the promise of being made new? Are you answering the call? Hitting the gym? Or are you seeing results?