Pleasantly positive thoughts and ‘rah-rah’ rantings aren’t working anymore. I recently read a book by Michael Burlingame, professor of history at Connecticut College, called The Inner World of Abraham Lincoln. It described a six-year soul-searching period of Lincoln’s life where he was struggling with “a sadness so profound that the depths of it cannot be sounded… by normal minds.”
When Lincoln withdrew from public service in 1849, he was described as an “honest, capable, but essentially self-centered politician” with limited vision.
Later, Lincoln returned to public service with a “new authority”, communicating with a “new seriousness” emerging from being a “political hack” obsessed with “narrow partisanship and small purposes” into a true “statesman.”
What happened? He hit hard times — Lincoln buried a son and father, recognized his life pattern of failures — from entering the Black Hawk war as a captain and coming home as a private, to failing in his political ambitions in every major effort, to failing in business in various ways and falling into deep debt.
Lincoln spent deep and intense time examining his life, reexamining his purpose and deepening his faith in God. What emerged from this crucible was a man ready for greatness in history — a greatness that clearly saved our lives.
Some years ago, Stephen Covey did a survey of ‘self-improvement’ literature over the course of American history and discovered that our national obsession with being better people was disconnected from our value-systems — his books and programs represented a deeper attempt to deepen the well of our own personal transformation.
But even committing ourselves to becoming more ‘highly-effective’ isn’t working anymore. Tragically popular trends in Christian churches today, often simply aping self-improvement theory, ring-hollow when we face our great challenges, personal brokenness and deepest fears and tragedies. Precisely because our consumerist attitudes and ‘partisan, small minded agendas’ for what we need in God and in a church and what we expect out of God and our churches often leave us blind to recognizing two things: we’re in bigger trouble than any of us have thought, and it’s not just economic and we’ve relegated God’s role to a side-line coach who doubles as an inexhaustible ATM, while simultaneously relegating our faith to formulaic, “PIN number” over-simplicity.
Perhaps now is the hour a deeper and more serious consideration of life – from here and to eternity – is called for! Perhaps it’s time for authentic personal change!
For more information, email PastorJimCPC@hughes.net or visit our website at www.centrepointe.org .