Geoff's Miscellany

Miscellaneous Musings

Geoff

Self-Deception, Self-Knowledge, and Self-Denial

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In Luther’s 95 theses, he observes, “Our Lord and Master Jesus Christ, when He said Poenitentiam agite, willed that the whole life of believers should be repentance.”

I think that Luther is correct here. For instance, in Romans 12:2, Paul summarizes the Christian life as being “transformed by the renewing of the mind.” Luther’s thought is that the entire Christian life is looking to God’s revelation in Christ, looking to ourselves as sinful and in need of grace and mercy, and transforming our minds on the basis of that revelation.

With this in mind, I wish to look at true self-knowledge and self-deception.

Self Deception

Coming to know ourselves in a true way is central to the Christian life. It is also central to becoming successful in other endeavors as well. The problem with coming to this knowledge is a frequent failure to consciously admit what we really know to be true. This is a form of self-deception.

For instance, one of my legs is shorter than the other. As I’ve gotten stronger in the gym this leg geometry issue has become uncomfortable.

For years I just thought, “Well, it’s not that bad. In fact, I can totally deal with it.” But in reality the different is significant enough that affects my posture and contributes to some sharp pain in a small area in my lower back.

I finally admitted that I have this problem and went to a cobbler and got some hard crepe added to my squat and dead lifting shoes.

My back is slowly getting used to having even hips in the squat. I’m not as strong as I was despite being functionally “healed” by my change of mind on the matter. But I’m slowly building back up and squats and deadlift no longer make my hip joints feel weird or bad.

With respect to spiritual growth, similar failures to acknowledge the actual state of our souls can cripple us as we grow in other areas. Similarly, admitting the truth about ourselves, “I really am a wrathful/lustful/arrogant/murderous/selfish/failing/foolish person…” can feel like a major regress. But living with frequent failures and near misses with respect to our most embarrassing or incriminating impulses and then covering them with phrases like, “I blew it” or “God is strong in my weakness” is a copout if we think of repentance as the whole of the Christian life. Repentance involves, as I mentioned above, comparing ourselves to the revelation of God in Christ.

Self Knowledge

So, coming to self-knowledge has benefits. But it is difficult just like coming to an accurate knowledge of this or that field of study.

In the case of my leg-length discrepancy, I had to actually become weaker temporarily to train my body safely. A similar problem could come to somebody who finally owns the fact that they are greedy and in significant debt. The art of living justly and graciously with regard to finances might require that they become way less generous until they pay of their debts (because giving money away that you owe to somebody else is certainly not Christlike or good).

Because self-knowledge can be so difficult or even painful, we have tremendous incentive not to gain it. This reticence may even lead us to not even have a system in place to gain self-knowledge.  Thankfully, the Bible and plain reason give us several methods to gain self-knowledge:

  1. Admit that your wisdom is apt to be flawed[1]
    1Co 3:18 Let no one deceive himself. If anyone among you thinks that he is wise in this age, let him become a fool that he may become wise.
    1Co 8:2  If anyone imagines that he knows something, he does not yet know as he ought to know.
  2. Compare Your Life to Scripture’s Moral Ideals
    Jas 1:23-25 For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks intently at his natural face in a mirror.  (24)  For he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like.  (25)  But the one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres, being no hearer who forgets but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his doing.
  1. Accept Criticism
    Pro 10:17 Whoever heeds instruction is on the path to life, but he who rejects reproof leads others astray.
    Pro 12:1  Whoever loves discipline loves knowledge, but he who hates reproof is stupid.
  2. Be a part of a group wherein you can frankly discuss your sins, failures, and flaws
    Pro 27:17  Iron sharpens iron, and one man sharpens another.
    Jas 5:16  Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working.
  3. Spend time in silence
    From personal experience, spending time in silence is a powerful way to have the tape of your life replay in your mind. If you approach this with the mindset that “I am what I think and what I do,”[2] you’ll find that you might be a lot worse than you are. This is probably not a good discipline for people who struggle with depression or melancholy. But if you want to assess yourself, then it is hard to find a better method.
  4. Journal
    This can come from all of the previous methods. You can write your personal resolutions and your assessment of how you met them or did not.

Conclusion

One of my old karate instructors said, “When presented with two standards, always choose the highest.” Self-deception is easy. Self-knowledge is hard. But the way of self-knowledge allows us to deny ourselves in the truest way. And self-denial under Christ’s guidance is the only way to the life of rest that he promises:

“to step with Jesus into the path of self-denial immediately breaks the iron-clad grip of sin over human personality and opens the way to a fuller and ever fuller restoration of radical goodness to the soul. It accesses incredible, supernatural strength for life.”[3]

References

[1] Observe that while Paul criticizes the “wisdom of this age” Paul never equates that with the wisdom of Proverbs and Ecclesiastes. The wisdom of “this age” appears to be the wisdom of making non-Christian ideals ultimate such as riches, knowledge, rhetoric, long life, etc.” These are all goods to seek in the Bible, but they are not to be sought as ultimate or final goals. Instead the Christian who sows and spins for food and clothes is to nevertheless “seek first the kingdom of God.” So don’t take Paul’s warnings as a censure on being wise. Paul actually says that you can become wise if you first admit your foolishness. In fact, in 1 Corinthians 3:19 you see that God’s wisdom (what is revealed in the Old Testament and the gospel) is still good. This is why we shouldn’t boast in our favorite teachers as though they make us superior to other Christians. Instead, we should boast in the Lord.

[2] In Christ this is not all you are, but you are not less than what you think and do.

[3] Dallas Willard, Renovation of the Heart: Putting on the Character of Christ (Colorado Springs, Colo.: NavPress, 2002), 75.

Dallas Willard on Acknowledging God

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There are many passages of Scripture that give instructions whose application is not always apparent.

One of the most important disciplines prescribed in your Bible is to “set the Lord always before” you (Psalm 16:8). Elsewhere it is put this way, “In all your ways, acknowledge him…” (Proverbs 3:6).

But how? Dallas Willard gives us solid direction here:

The gospel of the kingdom of God which Jesus preached, “Repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand,” is precisely the good news that, in everything I am and do, God invites me to invite him to be my co-worker. He invites me to look to him, to act and move in tangible ways no matter what it is.

Go back to that verse in Proverbs, “In all your ways acknowledge him.” What does that mean? It means that we recognize he is God, and we acknowledge his authority in what we are doing. When I set up a course, or when I undertake to translate something from German into English, or whatever I am doing, writing a paper, composing a book, I expect God to direct me. I expect there to be a movement in my life that is more than me.

I’ve written about how Proverbs 3:5-7 is not about a weird mysticism that is against using wisdom. But it is the case that the form of mysticism, if it is mysticism at all, described by Willard is precisely what the text says.

  1. Acknowledge that what you do should be done in the character of Christ: humility, love, honesty, thoughtfulness, and so-on.
  2. Acknowledge that what you do should be done excellently, as unto the Lord. This goes back to Genesis 1:29-2:15. We were made to take dominion or be garden cultivators.
  3. Acknowledge that the knowledge necessary for your task is made available in the world by God and is hidden in Christ (Colossians 2:1-5).

How to Read Biblical Metaphor

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When we read our bibles we’ll often come across well-crafted images which were meant, at the time, to pack tremendous rhetorical punch. Two of the biggest mistakes we can make are to:

  1. Read over the images with no feeling and think of them as ancient curiosities.
  2. Work hard to understand them academically without reference to the feelings that the human and divine authors wished you to feel.

These two common responses to the Biblical imagery are common for those of us from less meditative versions of Christianity or who have academic training in biblical interpretation.

An example of this might be to read something like Psalm 23 and simply observe that it is about God’s care or to read it and look at ancient parallels and attitudes toward shepherds or whether or not David wrote it. But the Psalm is using imagery to be formative and evocative.

In one of my favorite studies of metaphor, though flawed in some of its historical analysis, is More Than Cool Reason: A Field Guide to Poetic Metaphor.

The author’s make several observations about the power of barely noticed or entirely unnoticed metaphor in thought to structure our experience. But more core to the book’s message is their observation of the power of intentionally constructed metaphor to communicate actual knowledge and to give structure to human experience.[1] The authors outline the power of metaphor under these headings (explanations are my own):[2]

  1. The power to structure
    Metaphors can add structure to a concept that does not natively have that structure. For instance to consider spiritual progress to be a war now means that there are short term tactics, long term strategies, and that enemies to spiritual progress (like the seven vices) deserve no quarter because they are passions which wage war against your soul (your very being as a human). Not coincidentally, even the word progress add structure to the concept of the spiritual life. The spiritual life has milestones, a destination, and so-on.
  1. The power of options
    A metaphor is powerful because of its many options. If I explain metaphor like a closet from which structures can be pulled depending on the weather, but I do not say whether or not it is a walk-in closet then leave the option open. But I can close the option to make the metaphor more specific: Poetic metaphor is like a walk-in closet with a gun-safe, and four seasonal racks of clothes. You can pull clothes out for purpose, or even take stashed metaphors for dry months financially or grab a dangerous metaphor for a home invasion.
  1. The power of reason
    Metaphors allow us to import new ways of reasoning to current life circumstances. So to use metaphor of this sort in a speech or poem or in your self-talk, is to offer people the power, not just to feel, but to think differently. An example from Scripture would be, “There is a way that seems right to a man, be the end of its way is death.” Many people, once they start a course of action feel like the result is predetermined and forget that they can back out or change course. But reminding people that life functions like a road and you can often turn around before you reach a dead end allows them to reason their way out of their current situation.
  1. The power of evaluation
    Metaphors can bring in evaluative force from other domains into the domain utilized. For any of my lawyer readers, this is part of the power of legal analogy and precedent. Case ‘X’ is like case ‘Y’ wherein verdict ‘Z’ was reached. Therefore, verdict ‘Z’ is appropriate. Similarly, most people like being strong more than being weak. So in politics, somebody who takes metaphors of strength versus weakness to frame policy differences has imported a fundamental human preference as a metaphor for evaluating ideas.
  2. The power of being there
    Metaphors are simply there. For instance, most people have been on journeys. This is the power of “life is a high way,” “walk in the Spirit,” “the journey of 1000 miles begins with a single step.” The image is already there to be exploited.

Of course, I would add and the authors do all over their book, that metaphor has the power to cause feeling.

What this means is that poetry and poetic language when properly engaged has the power to be a formative experience and it is, indeed, meant to do so. This is because they engage our emotions by calling upon past experiences (available pictures), they engage our intellect by adding structure, new paths of thought, and the ability to evaluate things differently, and they engage our imagination by causing us to use images to see the options used, available, and unavailable by the writer/speaker.

By the way, some people might balk at using Lakoff and Turner’s manual for Biblical interpretation, but Robert Alter says basically the same thing:[3]

“The psalm are of course poems written out of deep and often passionate faith. What I am proposing is that the poetic medium made it possible to articulate the emotional freight, the moral consequences, the altered perception of the world that flowed from this monotheistic belief, in compact verbal structures that could in some instances seem [to be] simplicity itself.”

The poetry in the Bible, particularly the Psalms, is meant to give concrete expression to the philosophical, moral, and emotional consequences of the monotheistic beliefs of the psalmists. In other words, the metaphors of Scripture provide grist for the intellectual, imaginative, and emotional mill.

We read a poem, place ourselves in the appropriate frame of mind to understand it’s meaning and accept or reject (in whole or in part) the message therein.[4]

In short, when we come across imagery/metaphor in the Bible’s poetry or moral teachings we should attempt to interpret it using intellect, emotion, and imagination. The exercise below is simply meant to show how to interpret the Biblical imagery to determine what it means. The exercises below could be applied to any poem and are not meant to be explicitly spiritual, they just seem that way because they’re about the Bible.

  1. Intellect
    Here we look at the structure the metaphor provides to the thing described and the new pathways of reason and evaluation the metaphor seeks to convey. This involves understanding the metaphor in its ancient context as well then making the appropriate inferences from the metaphor to our own lives. For instance, “Our Father, who are in heaven” might be meant to lead us to think of our struggles not as God’s hatred or indifference but as either discipline or his respect for us as sons (see Hebrews 12).
  2. Emotion
    In this case, we seek to place ourselves in an emotional frame of mind similar to the one the metaphor intends to place us. In the case of hearing that the Father of Jesus loves us in the same way he loves Jesus, we might remember a time that we felt extremely loved. To do this, I recommend sitting in silence and really thinking about it, imagine the circumstances that led to the feeling, the person who loved you that way, and the specific feelings in your physical body (hairs standing up, tears, blood rushing to your cheeks, that strange warmth in your chest like you want to shout and cry for joy at once). Then realize that God’s love for you is like this but infinite. That’s what the imagery is, apparently, meant to invoke.
  1. Imagination
    Use your imagination to place yourself in the position that the metaphor demands of you and to look at the options it leaves open. “Our Father, who art in heaven,” takes away the option of seeing God as opposed to your well-being, even if his commands are opposed to your immediate desires or goals. The image does leave open the option of there being an older brother in the family to explain the Father’s orders to his children.

This post might be a bit more academic than some would like. The practical payoff for spiritual formation will be in another post.

References

[1] George Lakoff and Mark Turner, More than Cool Reason: A Field Guide to Poetic Metaphor (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1989),

[2] Lakoff and Turner,  64-65.

[3] Robert Alter, The Art of Biblical Poetry (New York: Basic Books, 2011), 113.

[4] On this aspect of poetry, see especially C. S Lewis, An Experiment in Criticism (Cambridge: University Press, 1961). His notion of making sure to take an author’s work on its own terms in order to accept or reject one’s orders is great. On this score, I also recommend Mortimer Jerome Adler and Charles Lincoln Van Doren, How to Read a Book, 1972.

 

Should Pastors Write Systematic Theologies?

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A while back I wrote about the importance of keeping a personal copia, a topical index of quotes, arguments, illustrations, and examples.

Here the point is far, far more specific.

It’s about pastors and their writing habits.

A friend, who will remain anonymous, thought he had nothing to say when I suggested he write a systematic theology.

For those who don’t know, a systematic theology is a book covering the various topics of theology and stating, not merely what the author things is true about them and why, but also the interconnectedness of the themes of the Bible, Christian tradition, and Christian confessions of faith.

Such an exercise is quite valuable and in the digital age remarkably easy to edit and update. I have done no such exercise, I’m neither a real pastor (just a school teacher) nor a real scholar (don’t have an advanced academic degree), but my friend is. With his academic training writing a brief version of such a book would be time consuming, but simple.

Here is what my favorite poet, George Herbert, had to say about the matter:

THE Country Parson hath read the Fathers also, and the Schoolmen, and the later Writers, or a good proportion of all,* out of all which he hath compiled a Book and Body of Divinity, which is the storehouse of his Sermons, and which he preacheth all his Life; but diversely clothed, illustrated, and enlarged. For though the world is full of such composures, yet every man’s own is fittest, readiest, and most savoury to him. Besides, this being to be done in his younger and preparatory times, it is an honest joy ever after to look upon his well-spent hours. This Body he made by way of expounding the Church Catechism, to which all Divinity may easily be reduced. For it being indifferent in itself to choose any Method, that is best to be chosen, of which there is likeliest to be most use. Now Catechizing being a work of singular and admirable benefit to the Church of God, and a thing required under Canonical obedience, the expounding of our Catechism must needs be the most useful form.[1]

If you don’t feel like reading the quote, Herbert suggests:

  1. That Christian ministers take the catechism (or confession of faith) used in their church and compiles a systematic theology that compares and synthesizes the ideas of famous theologians of the past on each topic.
  2. That from this work of careful logic he should be able to more clearly explain in sermons the various doctrine of the Christian faith using illustrative rhetoric and specific applications.
  3. That writing this work is worth it because it will be his own, despite the quality of other works available.
  4. That writing this work in his youth will make him happy in his old age.
  5. Finally, it will help him in his work of catechizing to practice explaining the catechism in more rigorous form in print.

So, pastors, anybody writing a systematic theology text this year?

* “Woe be to him that reads but one book”—Herbert’s Proverbs.

[1] George Herbert, The Works of George Herbert (London: George Routledge & Co., 1854), 224.

Growth in Grace: Means

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In previous posts I’ve been writing about God’s grace and what it means to grow in that grace.

To grow in anything, at least on purpose, we need to have three things. Vision, Intention, and Means.

Today, we learn about means. By what means can we grow in God’s grace?

A word about means, means are method or instruments for accomplishing something.

For instance, if I am fastening two boards together, the means by which I do it could be a nail or an adhesive like glue. The means by which I drive the nail is a hammer.

Similarly, if I have a vision for becoming a person with no debt, the means by which I do this might be to write a budget and follow it, work a second job, invite a roommate to help with rent, and so-on.

Christian growth in grace is no different. Many times we read the commands in the Bible to have certain virtues or character traits and we miss out on the parts of Scripture that offer means for gaining those character traits.[1]

One way of talking about the means of growing into Christ’s image in to talk about “spiritual disciplines.” Some people don’t like that language because it implies doing hard work, but Jesus calls us to be disciples, so having disciplines seems like a natural outgrowth of that. But if you do not like the language, then call them “means of grace.”

What are some of the means the Bible gives for growing in grace?

  1. Meditation on the truths of the gospel of Christ
    In fact, this very act is what we did in the post on vision. Thinking about the greatness of Jesus, his love for us, his plan for history, the mercy of his Father, and the power of his Spirit, and what kind of person he wants to make of us is precisely one of the best means for achieving that vision (2 Corinthians 3:18-4:6).
  2. Knowledge of Scripture
    2 Timothy 3:14-17 makes it clear that knowing, not just the gospel (the New Testament), but the whole Bible is important for wisdom and training in righteousness. Reading the Bible as a book meant to reveal Jesus Christ and to train us in wisdom can help you to grow in wisdom and righteous character. With this fact in mind here are some means that are meant to help you have more Scripture intake:
  • Read the Bible
  • Bible memory
  • Bible study
  • Listening to the Bible out loud.
  • Listening to the Bible with the church community.
  • Meditating on the Bible.
  • Praying the prayers of the Bible.
  • Making visible inscriptions of important passages of the Bible in your home.
  1. Fasting
    This discipline is controversial, but it is at its heart, saying no to food for a set period of time in order to receive a blessing from God. In the New Testament that blessing is connected to receiving a reward from God for prayer and alms giving. I suspect that the idea is that fasting gives us time away from food to pray and extra resources to give. Later Christians connected fasting, rightly in my mind, with learning self-control (self-mastery) and temperance.
  2. Prayer (with the specific meaning of “asking God for something”)
    The prayers in the Bible range from prayers for good things, prayers for bad things, prayers for help, and prayers for forgiveness. But most especially in the New Testament we see prayers for help in character transformation. This is especially so in the Lord’s Prayer (Matthew 6:9-13) and the prayers in Paul’s letters.
  3. Practicing the Presence of God
    This spiritual discipline is similar to the self-help tool called “mindfulness.” Except instead of trying to be non-judgmentally mindful of your internal feelings and external circumstances, you try to bring God or rather, truths concerning God before the mind. There are three ways to do this:
  • God as revealed in nature
    In doing this you can think either personally about God’s presence in nature. But this has limits, because not everything it beautiful and capable of lifting your mind and soul to the Lord. You can also do this philosophically by thinking about causality and the need for a first mover or prime cause for every aspect of reality you see or experience. Both of these are important.
  • God as revealed in Scripture
    Here you bring God before the mind by recalling memorized Scripture about God’s greatness, love, and mercy. Examples of this that are built into the Christian life are singing hymns, taking the Lord’s Supper, and remembering the meaning of Baptism.
  • God as revealed in personal experience
    Here you remember answered prayer, specific moments of spiritual intensity, and the stories of other Christians. By recalling these specific acts of God on the stage of recent human history, you can remember more fully Jesus’ promise “I am with you every day” (Matthew 28:20).
  1. Confession of Sin
    Confession of sin to others (God included) has a doubly cleansing effect. The first is that the Bible teaches that confessing sin is one of the conditions for receiving cleansing from unrighteous character (1 John 1:9). Secondly, is that it works like finally going into that messy room in the house that you avoid so that you don’t have to clean it. Once you calmly admit what is wrong you can become much more active in removing it. It’s just the way the human mind works. Keeping some bad habit as a deep dark secret seems to fuel our efforts to avoid confronting it ourselves. Simply admitting it to the Lord and/or a trusted Christian friend is enough to destroy our patterns of avoidance and internalized shame.

Now, obviously, there are other means to growing into the Biblical vision of Christ-like character in the kingdom of God, but these are some of the most explicitly Biblical ones.

No Instant Power-Ups

Perhaps the most important thing to remember in all of this is that growth in Christian character is by degrees and is awaiting a final transformation that we ourselves cannot do (1 John 3:1-2). You might work on a spiritual discipline for quite sometime before you one day notice: well, Jesus has really changed me. The metaphors the Bible often uses for spiritual growth are building houses, growing crops, taking long journeys, and being students. None of these things occur with instantaneous efficiency. There is no reason to expect your spiritual growth to happen this way, either. In other words, be like the ant in Proverbs 6:6-8.

Do you have anything you think should be added to the list?

Posts in the series

  1. What does “grow in grace” mean?
  2. Growth in Grace: Vision
  3. Growth in Grace: Intention
  4. Growth in Grace: Means
  5. Growth in Grace: The Feelings

References

[1] There are several reasons for this. One is a recent Protestant aversion to anything that sounds like works. In the reformation era, works were only considered bad insofar as they were treated as necessary when the Bible either never mentioned them or forbade them or insofar as they were treated as a means of earning rather than a means of showing gratitude (growing in grace). Many modern Protestants think that any talk of “trying” in the Christian life is bad. I deal with this misconception in relationship to how Christians talk about “duty,” “debt,” “obligation,” and “trying” here.

It’s a New Year: Be the Ant

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Pro 6:6-8  Go to the ant, O sluggard; consider her ways, and be wise.  (7)  Without having any chief, officer, or ruler,  (8)  she prepares her bread in summer and gathers her food in harvest.

This is a short passage. In context, the author is talking about settling accounts and avoiding poverty.

There are four ant-traits in the text that are relevant for settling accounts (Proverbs 6:1-5) and avoiding poverty:

  1. The ant is a self-starter.
  2. The ant prepares for the future.
  3. The ant prepares little by little (because she’s tiny), every day.
  4. The ant prepares for a long time (until winter).

A lot of people don’t like New Year’s resolutions.

I typically make pretty hard ones even though I see the practice as cheesy (pizza is also cheesy and it’s wonderful), but this year I already have too many goals to work on, so I’m simply trying to improve my efficiency at reaching them.

But if you don’t like resolutions for the New Year, but still want to reflect on bettering yourself here are two questions:

  1. What do I want more of?
  2. What do I want less of?

Think hard about these. The answers should be optimistic, but not impossible. They should also be based on your actual values, not simply social ideals that other people think you should live up to. Think about things like, “I want more knowledge, more time with my church, more time with my family, more good feelings, more Bible memorized, more risk taking, more money, more power, more humility, etc.” For question two think about things like this: “I want less wasted time on the internet, less television, less clutter, less whining, less fighting, less time spent feeling depressed, less sugar in my diet, less debt, less sinful habits (porn, explosive anger, greedy spending, intentional antagonizing, etcetera), etc.”

If you’re in a bad mood, listen to some music to get more pumped up, go for a walk, have a coffee and come back to them. Or, if you’re more contemplative, think about a time when you felt really successful and confidence. Think about it until you have the same emotional reaction you did at that time in your life. Do it until the hair stands up on your neck or arms or you feel embarrassed for being pumped up about something that happened five years ago.

After you’ve spent time reflecting on these two questions then reflect pair down your wants to a reasonable number for you. One might be all you can muster, but like a snow ball starting with a single handful, that one thing is better than nothing. I recommend no more than six. You can work on building up habits for two months at a time to solidify them before adding a new one. Of course, you could redo this exercise every month.

Now ask these two questions:

  1. What small, self-starting, regular action can I take to get the more that I want?
  2. What small, self-starting, regular action can I take to have the less that I want?

These actions should be small, designed to get the results you want from the first two questions, and be things you’re willing to change if they do not work. They should be easy enough to do that they make almost no difference in your life when you do them and make almost no difference when you don’t. But, if you do them for several days, weeks, months, and years they’ll add up. Think about the ant. She probably gathers enough food for each day and a little bit more.

As a final exercise, to motivate yourself to do these small little actions I recommend:

  1. Imagine yourself enjoying the more/less you plan to have and how pleasant that will be compared to how your life is now. Capitalize on your motivation out of your current frustrations and the motivation toward who you want to be. This sort of visualization seems kooky until you read old poetry, sermons, and speeches and see how often visualization and imagery were used to motivated people. Television may have stolen our imagination in this regard.
  2. When the small habit seems like a burden one day or several weeks simply say, “I’ll be better and happier for doing this than I will be for not.” Don’t let the false “be authentic to yourself by being a wreck or admitting your weakness” keep you from shoring up your weaknesses. You can admit that you have weak arms, but you still better do some bicep curls to fix it. Imagine if your doctor decided not to study your illness because he was being “true to himself” when he felt too tired to read ten pages from a desk reference.