Wisdom from Erwin McManus…

November 20, 2004 | 5:04 AM

Second Corinthians 5:17 reminds us, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!” This is nothing less than a divine metamorphosis of our very essence. At the same time, there is a significant role we play in the journey of transformation. It is this part of the journey that will be the focus for freedom. No one can force this on you, nor can it be anyone else’s ambition for your life. Sometimes it takes a menagerie of different experiences to bring us to it. Some of us will insist on going through tremendous pain, disappointment, and failure before we come to it. Eventually we have to be able to look at ourselves in the mirror and decide there’s someone else that we want to see there. But everyone who’s going to make this particular trek has to pass through the same gauntlet that has brought me and so many others to that place where in the deafening silence we hear the cry of our own soul screaming, “I want to change!”

“So many of us have abdicated our passions for obligations, as if passion is a luxury for the young, and we must all grow up one day. We, even if reluctantly, fall into place to live a life of conformity that we describe as ‘maturity.’ We’ve made acting like an adult synonymous with living apathetic lives. Maybe this is why when senior adults finally leave the assembly line of their careers and being to do what they have always really wanted, they are described as being in a ’second childhood.’ If apathy is adulthood and passion is childish, then I understand all the more the words of Jesus when He said that to enter His kingdom we must come as little children.”

Humility’s closest attribute is honesty. Humility doesn’t require us to be self-depreciating. Humility is not about having a low self-image or poor self-esteem. Humility is about self-awareness. It is important to be self-aware in relationship to our gifts, talents, skills, and intellect, but in regard to our spiritual health, it is far more essential that we are self-aware in the arena of personal character. If you see yourself for who you are and embrace it honestly, humility is the natural result. God isn’t asking you to say something about yourself that isn’t true. God is asking that we take a good, long look in the mirror and see ourselves for who we truly are, and then after that, to have the courage to ask for help. Our humility allows for God’s intervention.

The solution is not to stop doing good in order to ensure that we don’t do evil. That’s like adding insult to injury. God frees us from sin not to leave us empty, but to fill us with life. His goal is not to replace sin with inaction. In other words, you don’t fill a vacuum with a vacuum. You overcome selfishness with servanthood and greed with generosity. … As tempting as it may be to live detached from the world around us, it is not in keeping with the heart of God. Jesus did not come into this world and live His life on a mountaintop isolated from human suffering. He did not heal lepers from a distance, but touched them into wholeness. He pressed his disciples and prayed for them to be in the world but not of the world. The focus of their three years together was not the salvation of the Twelve, but their ministry to the entire planet.

Lack of gratitude is a manifestation of an abundance of greed. … The dilemma in our pursuit for wholeness is that brokenness is often laced with ungratefulness. In fact I am convinced that perpetual brokenness is defined by a lack of gratitude, and this is the key to the path of wholeness. Whatever else we may need, whatever support systems might be helpful to us, whatever insights or truths may aid us in the journey, nothing will heal us if we are ungrateful. No truth, no matter how profound, will fund its way into a heart that is absent of gratitude. Gratitude is the singular characteristic that will determine how far we travel on this quest for nobility. It is gratitude that nurtures wholeness and expresses itself as generosity in the end. Gratitude is the pathway of love. It unleashes the healing power of love. It increases our capacity to experience love and to give it.

The quest for nobility is a journey that takes us from gratitude to wholeness to generosity. There is no other path that leads us to the freedom that makes us complete. … It is a life of gratitude that makes us whole, overwhelms us with love, and moves us to live generous lives.

Forgiveness unlocks gratitude and gratitude unleashes love. … Our ability to receive forgiveness is directly related to our willingness to give it. (Col. 3:13-14) A direct benefit of gratitude is the freedom from bitterness. … When there is a deficit of love, there is also a reluctance to forgive. This is a significant dilemma for us in our journeys toward emotional well-being in that an unwillingness to forgive will circumvent the process of becoming whole. In the same way that gratitude is intertwined with forgiveness, brokenness is often perpetuated by bitterness.

Again, even as gratitude and forgiveness are inseparable, so are ungratefulness and bitterness. When we are grateful, we see and experience life with a healthy optimism. When we lack gratitude, we move toward pessimism and even cynicism. An ungrateful heart always sees what’s wrong with life. The longer we live without gratitude, the more embittered we become. The more embittered we become, the more we find ourselves overwhelmed with depression. Bitterness in the end leads to hopelessness. If we are to enjoy lives of gratitude, we must break free from the gravitational pull of bitterness. For in the same way that gratitude leads to wholeness, bitterness will leave us shattered and broken. In this condition we find ourselves unable to experience the life God dreams for us, and at the same time we will leave others cut and bleeding as they press against our sharp edges.

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