Stubborn. That was me – as a kid, a teen, a youngish adult.

But I turn fifty this year (can’t believe I just wrote that) and as I’ve gotten older, I am less stubborn. In fact, there are times when I can change my mind with great rapidity.

Like recently when a huge spider scuttled across the floor.

You may already know about my favorite method of dealing with spiders, and a hardcover copy of The Wings of a Dove by Henry James was closest. I haven’t read it but was thinking of starting it soon, which is why it was handy.

Whump, I dropped its hefty weight on top of the spider.

Mostly on top, that is. I looked at Vin and cringed.

“Um…it’s like the wicked witch under Dorothy’s house.”

“A leg is sticking out?”

“Two legs.” Shudder. “Maybe I’ll read that book in a couple years, and start The Great Gatsby instead.” And I did; I finished it last weekend. (Three stars.)

Dear fellow humans, we are allowed to change our minds, to change our ways. It’s required for our maturity, in fact.

Also, speaking of spiders, we are allowed – commanded, even – to ward off the enemy’s attempts to encroach upon our space. Our homes, our hearts, and our habits should be free of spiritual creepy crawlies. This is how we take the land and hold our ground, also known as stewardship and obedience.

Do not be conformed to this age, but be transformed by the renewing of the mind, so that you may discern what is the will of God—what is good and acceptable and perfect.

– Romans 12:2

But how do we mature past our own stubbornness, when we don’t want to change? There’s no single answer, but since it came up recently, let’s talk about motivation.

Unmotivated people rarely mature. But when we’re motivated, we obey with enthusiasm.

I want that spider to die, so I’ll use whatever book is at hand, whether or not I’ll have to burn it afterward.

More spiritually, I want this sin/habit/prejudice/addiction/hangup removed from my life so badly, I’ll do whatever it takes because I want the joy and freedom on the other side of obedience.

Or, alternatively: I want this discipline/accomplishment/victory/breakthrough/understanding so much, I’ll surrender anything to follow Jesus into it.

We’re motivated by a lot of things, but sometimes maturity isn’t one of them. And let’s be honest – the Lord knows this about us.

Sometimes we’d rather be in control and keep the predictable status quo. Sometimes we’re deceived by lies we’ve convinced ourselves of until God confronts us, or the pain is so bad we are pressed into action, like…

• Saul, who became Paul, who began as a murderer of martyrs but became a martyr himself after he wrote most of the New Testament. Deceived by tradition and his own self righteousness (you could also read these as control), he was literally blinded when Jesus confronted him on the way to capture and kill more believers.
• Or Peter, who held to religious laws at the expense of the gospel until God spoke to him in a vision – repeatedly, because God knows how stupid stubborn we humans are, and that we need things spelled out for us.

We may not have such dramatic stories, but God confronts us in any number of ways. Then we have a choice to make: Stubbornness, or willingness? Stagnancy, or repentance that moves us forward?

To make the right choice, we have to kill the silent partner that rides shotgun to stubbornness.

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Stubbornness is often linked to Dread, which I already mentioned.

Wait, I didn’t?

No, I promise you I did. I just used a code name for it: Control.

Control – or its alter ego, Dread – holds a gun to the back of our head and makes us a slave to it. If I change (surrender, repent, forgive, stop judging others, acknowledge the log in our own eye, stop lying to ourselves and others, or any other form of obedience), I don’t know what will happen. So I won’t.

An immature person does not trust God, therefore they require an illusion of control.

I’ve been watching a version of this lately that takes this to new, off the charts levels. By “lately,” I mean roughly the last decade and a half, but also more vividly, the last few months.

Imagine a person playing darts: They’ve seen the game played a million times, and played it themselves a million times more. But suddenly they insist that the way to play is by holding the dart backward, fletch first, and throwing aimlessly.

Then they blame you for not teaching them. For lying to them about the right way to hold, to throw, to play. For giving them the game in the first place. And when they play at all, they continue to throw fletch first.

And you realize after some prayer that this person is still afraid of winning a game. So afraid of what comes after this game that they will do whatever it takes to avoid it, destroy it, ruin the experience of anyone in the vicinity who wants to play.

If you dread the unknown, you’ll do whatever it takes to contain it – even if your world is the one that shrinks.

We dread all sorts of things, and change is a big one. But we also dread the worst case scenarios our unsanctified imaginations come up with, and the work that repentance demands.

We dread the disapproval of others, and their gossip and rejection. And we dread identifying with those we’ve previously judged – those whom we suspect may actually have been right all along, or at least not as wrong as we accused them of when we were busy ignoring the logs in our own eyes.

We dread failing to live up to our own expectations. So we put ourselves on pedestals, instead of going to the altar where we’re supposed to be the living sacrifice.

I appeal to you therefore, brothers and sisters, on the basis of God’s mercy, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your reasonable act of worship.

– Romans 12:1

We dread dying to ourselves, and we dread the altar until we trust His fire.

But the only way we get out of here alive is by dying to ourselves, and surrendering to Him.

And unless we know His goodness, that’s not something we’re naturally motivated to do.

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How many times has the Lord sent us somewhere kicking and screaming, and when we finally got there, we realized it was so much better than we’d dreaded?

I’m sorry to say that it wasn’t until my mid-thirties when I started learning that I can trust Him with the things I dread.

(Insert narrator voice: It was August of 2012. A living room in Wasilla, Alaska. At the end of a two-year-long adoption process. And there she was, swearing at online travel websites.)

We were trying to nail down the itinerary for our pick-up trip to bring Andrey and Reagan home. The flights from Alaska to Bulgaria were fine, but the best option available for our return trip – at which point we would have two young, mostly non-verbal children with us – included an overnight layover in Frankfurt.

I fought hard and stubbornly against it because the idea of sleeping ONE MORE NIGHT OVERSEAS launched me into all kinds of fretting and angst and frustration: We’d be away from our bio kids for two weeks, and coming back with our two other kids who (in my mind) just needed to get home asap so we could begin the work of adjusting into a family.

But the Lord knew better. He knew we would need sleep for our sanity, and He knew we had family in Frankfurt waiting for us. He knew we would love it, that I would love it in the end, and that this lesson would teach me to trust Him instead of fighting against Him.

Since then, we’ve seen this in more recent years with the dreaded situation of guardianship that ended up being a huge unforeseen blessing, and with medical issues and hard relationship boundaries, and various moves and countermoves the Lord has had us make in obedience.

I am learning that dread – not healthy alarm, but any fear that keeps us in an attitude of stubborn resistance – is usually smoke and mirrors for something the enemy doesn’t want me to advance into. The Lord is teaching me to turn dread on its head, because I can trust Him for what is on the other side of it.

So, dread is actually something that can be flipped into anticipation. What are You trying to do in this? What do You want me to see beyond my own assumptions?

Because understanding His goodness and love for us is incredibly motivating.

When we let Him lead us, He trains us in the steady mundane. The character and discipline we develop there gives us the guts to obey when He calls us into something completely beyond what we expected.

And this is how we mature.

I have been crucified with Christ, and it is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.

– Galatians 2:19b-20

How badly do we want to live and die for Him?

Our maturity comes down to this: Are we willing to see the way Jesus does? He is under no illusions about how good He is, about how much He loves us, or how much our freedom means to Him.

I am the gate. Whoever enters by me will be saved and will come in and go out and find pasture. The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.

– John 10:9-10 (Jesus speaking)

Motivation, excitement, and anticipation require trust. And trust requires that we know and see Him rightly. When we do that, we can’t help but be excited.

You will grab that book and fling it at the spider, not thinking of anything else.

But those who don’t will continue in their old ways, and make excuses for living with creepy crawlies. The religious will justify the status quo the same way the Pharisees did, by claiming it’s for the Lord. They’ll declare that their ways are His ways, regardless of how opposite those ways are to His character, because to them, the means justify the ends.

But that is not His way.

His way is to reach down when we don’t realize we’ve sunk in our own mire, kicking and flailing and resisting and trying to get out on our own, but our own ways are only increasing the rate of our descent.

This way, we demand.

Really, it’s for You, Lord, we insist, but we sink further.

But this is what I was always taught, always believed, always told myself, we plead.

We are the ship in the storm, demanding that the opposing light moves out of our way, only to discover that it’s a lighthouse.

We will crash upon its rocks if we do not yield to the immovable.

The Immovable is waiting to receive us with warmth, shelter, and healing.

But I can’t let go; if I let go, I’ll die, we agonize.

Yes. Yes, we will.

We release the idol of fearful control, and His hand grabs our outstretched fingers. Our inflated sense of righteousness is pricked by niggling facts that are more stubborn than we are, and our bold defiance deflates a little.

Let the wicked forsake their way
and the unrighteous their thoughts;
let them return to the Lord, that he may have mercy on them,
and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.

– Isaiah 55:7

All this time, we were afraid He would suck us under, but instead He’s right there, pulling us out.

Stubbornness, dread, and all other forms of resistance are powerless when we see and understand His goodness and love for us.

We realize His ways are not our ways, and it is the best news ever because once we’re honest, we admit our ways – which were shrinking, striving, demanding, judging, cringing, cowering, fawning, gaslighting ourselves and others – were miserable.

For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
nor are your ways my ways, says the Lord.
For as the heavens are higher than the earth,
so are my ways higher than your ways
and my thoughts than your thoughts.

– Isaiah 55:8-9

We stop finding strength in weak things: puffing anger, naval gazing, narcissistic offense, petty condescension, inflated presumption, conceited superiority or ignorant posturing that made a mockery of who we were meant to be, what Jesus died for so we could become like Him.

Love has been perfected among us in this: that we may have boldness on the day of judgment, because as he is, so are we in this world.

– 1 John 4:17

Emptied, and filled. Surrendered, and light. Dreading nothing, hopeful for what’s ahead. Free, and brave. Dead to sin, alive to Christ.

There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear; for fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not reached perfection in love.

We love because he first loved us.

– 1 John 4:18-19

We’ll get out of here alive. But we have to die first.

And before we let go, He is already reaching for us.

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P.S. Photos taken from a foggy evening last week at Independence Mine in Hatcher Pass, Alaska.

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