Real change starts with the heart

There’s a popular video on social media that perhaps you’ve seen. A woman is given the following scenario by a presenter: 'Imagine we’re in a race. I’m coming second and you pass me. What place are you in?'

She replies by saying 'First!' But the interviewer corrects her: 'No!' and then goes over the scenario again. 'If I’m in second place and you pass me, what place are you in?' Repeatedly she says 'first', until eventually we’re yelling along with her: 'First!'

But the answer is: you’re not first, you’re second. Think about it: if your friend is in second place, then at that point there’s still someone up ahead of them. If you pass your friend, you take over his place but the runner in first place is still in first place. Which makes you second.

Scrolling on social media can often be the equivalent of putting your brain into a jar, but on this occasion, it made me think about something more serious - which is this: how change often happens in the Christian life.

Competing behaviours

Sometimes, we get rid of one behaviour in our lives only to find ourselves swapping it for another. Think of the anorexic who defeats anorexia only to become bulimic. Or the bulimic who starts to self-harm. The self-harmer who turns to alcohol.  Or the alcoholic who starts abusing painkillers. Instead of defeating the initial temptation we settle for shuffling around a bunch of substitutes, 'second place' behaviours, and we never get out in front.

Speaking of her own struggles with addiction, one of my friends put it like this:

'Eating was relief for my depression, but this led to despair. Purging was relief from my despair, but this led to anxiety. Cutting became a relief from the anxiety, but this led back to depression.'

It makes a horrible sort of sense, doesn’t it? We develop certain behaviours because they help us in some way. Take them away and we’ll look for something similar to take their place. Something that does much the same job.

Sadly, I’m speaking from experience. As a teenager, when I was being treated for anorexia, I developed Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD). It had been a rough time for the whole family but, at last, it seemed like I was turning a corner. I was putting on weight. I didn’t feel so 'fat' but I did feel… dirty, contaminated, unclean.

Before, I’d poured my feelings into losing weight but had now found a new outlet. Where once I’d worried about calories, now I worried about germs. I started washing – over and over – for hours at a time. If I got it wrong, I’d have to start over.

And over.

And over again.

My parents were bewildered. 'We’ve come through anorexia and now there’s something else!?' I felt the same. What was wrong with me?

Over time, I’ve come to see that struggling in this way doesn’t makes me uniquely broken. In fact, it’s universally human.

All of us have deep-rooted behaviours, which are actually driven by deep-rooted desires.

Beating ourselves up for those behaviours doesn't help. What does help is to identify what we’re yearning for and to ask how we can really be sated.

What's in first place?

Someone who was way ahead of us on this was the Scottish pastor, Thomas Chalmers. He writes:

'[No-one] can dispossess the heart of an old affection, but by the expulsive power of a new one.'

Chalmers says that we can try to reason with our hearts all we like. We can tell ourselves that our compulsions are ridiculous and try our hardest to give them up – but it won’t work. The only thing that gets rid of an old slavery is a passion and vision for something even more compelling: Christ Himself.

The issue is not fat or thin or clean or sober. If we don't address the desires underlying all those secondary behaviours, we'll never get out ahead. We'll just keep swapping one addiction with another and never get victory.

Say you swap OCD for an exercise addiction and you’re so frustrated – you thought you’d be winning if you only overcame the OCD. Don’t panic; now the deeper work can begin.

Ask yourself: what is driving both the OCD and the exercise addiction? What is actually in first place in your heart?

Maybe you answer 'control'. That’s a start. But there are many more questions to ask. Control – how? Control of what? Control why? Control since when? And by whose standard?

And then keep going. Keep digging. Do it with friends. Do it in prayer. But work out what has captured your heart. Why? Because as Jeremiah 2:13 reminds us – this is our broken well. It’s the pit we keep digging which delivers only mud.

As we grapple with these issues we’re going beyond our addictions – our second place behaviours. We’re getting to our 'first place' affection. We’re speaking to the heart.