A regular discussion Christa and I often have centers around redemption and whether or not people can truly change who they are (i.e. character, behaviour, etc.) This sounds pretty straightforward on the surface, but as you dig a little deeper it becomes apparent that it is a complex issue. Typically, when we pose the question (can people really change?) we are holding ourselves under the microscope because we are frustrated with some character flaw or recurrent issue we have been dealing with in ourselves. The problem raises big questions like:

   
• What hold does a person’s personality have over them?

   

• What is the soul and spirit of man? 

   

• What is man’s nature at birth and is it changeable? 

   

• Does man have any responsibility for his own spiritual formation?

   

• If so, what results should he/she expect?

   

• Is it God who solely changes a person or are they co-laborers in the work?

Anyway, you get the idea of the complexity. The more I’ve thought through the issue, the more I believe that Jesus does want to redeem us fully (i.e. make us new or re-form us to the state we were originally designed for) and that it is a mutual process we must go through with Him. It’s God’s grace that makes this ALL possible, but he wants us to take part in our own spiritual formation. We can only do this if we have a clear vision and intentionally seek out ways or means to bring the vision into reality. Dallas Willard describes this process as a the "renovation of the heart" in his book of the same name.

In one section of the book, he talks about one aspect of this renovation (i.e having vision) and compares it to learning a new language. Since I’m learning a new language right now, I could really relate to the analogy. I’ve posted this section of the book below. If you don’t have time to read it all, maybe you can just scan the sections I’ve highlighted in blue. It’s good stuff and it’s prompted me to get a real vision for how I would see myself as an apprentice of Christ. What is my heart’s intended vision and what means am I willing to take to see it happen?

Learning to Speak Arabic (or Chinese)

Consider a case of those who wish to speak a language they do not presently know, say French or Arabic or Japanese. In order to carry through with this simple case of (partial) personal transformation, they must have some idea of what it would be like to speak the language in question–of what their lives would then be like–and why this would be a desirable or valuable thing for them. They also need to have some idea of what must be done to learn to speak the language and why the price in time, energy, and money that must be expended constitutes a bargain, considering what they get in return. In the ideal case, all of this would be clearly before them and they would be gripped by the desirability of it.

Now, this is the vision that goes into the particular project of learning the language.  Unless one has it–or better, it has them–the language will pretty surely not be learned. The general absence of such a vision explains why language learning is generally so unsuccessful in educational programs in the United States. The presence of such a vision explains why, on the other hand, the English language is learned at a phenomenal rate all around the world…If the vision is clear and strong, it will very likely pull everything else required with it; and the language (whichever it is) will be learned, even in difficult and distracting circumstance.

Still, more than vision is required, and especially there is required an intention. Projects of personal transformation rarely if ever succeed by accident, drift, or imposition.  Indeed, where accident, drift, and imposition dominate–as they usually do, quite frankly, in the lives of professing Christians–very little of any human value transpires. Effective action has to involve order, subordination, and progression, developing from the inside of the personality.  It is, in other words, a spiritual matter, a matter of meaning and will, for we are spiritual beings. Conscious involvement with "order, subordination, and progression, developing from the ‘inside’ of the personality" is how a life becomes our life–how we "get a life," as it is now said.

The will (spirit) is mysterious from the point of view of the physical and social world, for there it is causes, not choices, that dominate. But one can never get a grip on his or her own life–or that of others–from the causal point of view. It is choice that matters. Imagine a person wondering day after day if he or she is going to learn Arabic or if he or she is going to get married to a certain person–just waiting to see whether it would "happen."

That would be laughable.  But many people actually seem to live in this way with respect to major issues involving them, and with a deplorable outcome. That explains a lot of why lives go as they do. But to learn a language, and for the many even more important concerns of life, we must intend the vision if it is to be realized.  That is, we must initiate, bring into being those factors that would bring the vision to reality.

And that, of course, brings us to the final element in the general pattern, that of means or instrumentalities. Carrying through with the pattern for the illustration at hand, you will sign up for language courses, listen to recordings, buy books, associate with people who speak Arabic, immerse yourself in the culture, possibly spend some intensive time in Jordan or Morocco, and practice, practice, practice.

There are means known to be effective toward transforming people into speakers of Arabic and so on.  This is not mysterious.  If the vision is clear and strong, and the employment of the means thoughtful and persistent, then the outcome will be ensured and, basically, adequate to the vision and intention.