Train Wreck

[Please note this this is much longer than a blog post should be. I thought it was important to post the entire essay for the sake of continuity. Thanks for your patience]

I think at some point and time we have all seen, or for some of us even drawn the following diagram:

For some of you this is an old favorite. Others of you may have never even seen this diagram, so let me explain it. The thought process behind the diagram is that right thinking leads to right behavior (actions) which leads to right feelings, and in that particular order.

The diagram is most often used by biblical counselors and pastors when they encounter someone who is making decisions by letting their feelings lead them. For example, someone may say, I don’t “feel” love for my wife anymore. Therefore I am going to divorce her and marry another woman who makes me “feel” more loved. We would say that person is basing their decisions completely on their feelings. They aren’t considering biblical truth, the welfare of the other person or anything other than the way they “feel”. This is indeed a tragedy, and we need to point that person to a change in thinking and certainly a subsequent change in behavior. As you can see in the diagram, the feelings are a “caboose” that follows after the thinking and acting. They may or may not come along. After all, a train can run without a caboose.

In an effort to help change the man’s thinking about leaving his wife, the pastor or counselor will often give him scripture to read and memorize about pleasing God and not being selfish. The hope is that if the man is a believer, once he sees what God has to say about the situation he will change his thinking, resulting in a subsequent change in behavior. Then the pastor or counselor might say something like this “I know that you don’t feel like doing this and that this isn’t necessarily going to make you happy, but this is what God says and you must obey. The good feelings that accompany obedience will come along someday as you continue to obey. Even if they never come you still need to continue to be obedient.”

Let me say one thing before I move forward. All of the statements in the above paragraph are true. The methodology isn’t flawed. We must send people to scripture in order for God to renew their mind resulting in behavior change. However, in my humble opinion, the methodology, as well as the counsel given is incomplete. I think that the reason that they are incomplete is because the train diagram is incomplete, and the train diagram represents our theology of obedience. I consider myself to be a biblical counselor and work for a biblical counseling ministry. I see people everyday that are shackled to a feeling oriented life and need to change. I think that a revisitation of our theology of obedience will refocus us in a way that will glorify God and help people to change for His glory.

Exegetically I have never been able to embrace the train diagram shown above. It just seems like all too often in the Scripture God attaches feelings and emotions to our obedience, so that it seems inappropriate to simply consign them to the “caboose”. Since the train has been a staple of pastoral and counseling nomenclature for decades, I decided not to through out the train, but simply to modify it. I will show you my modified train diagram below, and then attempt to biblically defend why I think it represents a more God honoring view of obedience. (You may have to actually click on the train and open it to read everything clearly)





Here are the changes I made:

1- I added a visible furnace (the heart) so that we can see what is actually making the engine go. I don’t think that we can isolate thinking from the heart. Proverbs 23:7 says: As a man thinks in his heart, so is he.
2- I added a coal car called Godward Affection. You could change the name to Religious Affection or Delighting in God, etc.
3- I added an arrow showing that the coal from the coal car of Godward Affection is being placed into the furnace of the heart and this is what is resulting in the motion of the train. As you can see, when there is Godward Affection in the heart, it results in joy and gladness (which you can see coming out of the smokestack). This is what fuels the train and enables it to pull the car of obedience.

I know, I know, I can hear the question that you are asking. Why did you wreck the train? Well I had to. As I mentioned above I truly think that this represents a more God honoring and biblical theology of obedience. Let’s take a look at some of the Scriptures that have driven me to this conclusion:

Deut 28:47-48
Because you did not serve the LORD your God with joy and a glad heart, for the abundance of all things; therefore you shall serve your enemies whom the LORD will send against you, in hunger, in thirst, in nakedness, and in the lack of all things; and He will put an iron yoke on your neck until He has destroyed you.

It seems clear in this text that God commanded more than just obedience. In this case it wasn’t okay for the feelings/emotions to be consigned to the caboose. It didn’t say that these bad things would happen simply because they didn’t serve God, but because they didn’t serve God with joy and a glad heart. I think that in this case they would be lacking joy and gladness coming out of their smokestacks!

Ps 100:2
Serve the LORD with gladness; Come before Him with joyful singing.

Serve the Lord with what? Once again, in this passage you can’t just hope the gladness would come along, and say even if it doesn’t just obey. God commands glad obedience.

2 Cor 8:1-3
Now, brethren, we wish to make known to you the grace of God which has been given in the churches of Macedonia, that in a great ordeal of affliction their abundance of joy and their deep poverty overflowed in the wealth of their liberality. For I testify that according to their ability, and beyond their ability, they gave of their own accord,

Take a look at the example that the Macedonians are for us. Paul says that their abundance of joy…overflowed in the wealth of their liberality. You see the joy they had in God, even in the midst of great affliction, preceded their actions and was a causative factor in their obedience. The affection for God and joy came first. Then came the action. The liberal giving was an overflow of joy.

2 Cor 12:9-10
And He has said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness." Most gladly, therefore, I will rather boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me. Therefore I am well content with weaknesses, with insults, with distresses, with persecutions, with difficulties, for Christ's sake; for when I am weak, then I am strong.

In Philippians 3 Paul says that we should consider him an example. Let’s do that for a moment. Look at the progression of the passage. As Paul think about the amazing grace of God which is completely sufficient for him, it results in him not just exalting Christ in his weakness, but gladly exalting Christ.

Heb 10:32-34
But remember the former days, when, after being enlightened, you endured a great conflict of sufferings, partly by being made a public spectacle through reproaches and tribulations, and partly by becoming sharers with those who were so treated. For you showed sympathy to the prisoners and accepted joyfully the seizure of your property, knowing that you have for yourselves a better possession and a lasting one.

As the Hebrews meditated on the truth that they had a better possession and a lasting one, it resulted in them accepting joyfully the seizure of their property. They didn’t just accept it, they accepted in with joy as a result of meditating on the future grace of God in Jesus.

Heb 12:2
Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us also lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.

Christ is our ultimate example. We see clearly in this passage that the joy that was set before was the motivation to endure the cross. He didn’t just think, then act, then hope for some joy. He clearly new the Father was accomplishing his will, and even in the midst of sweating blood, his meditation on that truth produced joy. That delight in the father and joy was what carried Him to the cross.

So those are just some of the biblical reasons why I could never totally embrace the original train and had to create a modified version. I earnestly think that failing to teach people to obey in this way can lead to the following problems.

1. Duty driven obedience that can result in legalism

2. Hopelessness in the Christian walk.

3. Ultimate trust in the flesh to change based on “positive” thinking.

Now let’s unpack how these three problems can practically flesh themselves out if we fail to pursue Godward affection.

1. Duty driven obedience that can result in legalism

I can hear what you are saying…But it IS our duty to obey God. I completely understand that. Christ says “If you love me, keep my commandments”. We must obey God; it is a non-negotiable in the Christian life. The problem is when the motivation for obedience is completely based on duty. Maybe this quote from Dr. John Piper in Desiring God will help clarify what I am trying to say:

Consider the analogy of a wedding anniversary. Mine is on December 21. Suppose on this day I bring home a dozen long-stemmed red roses for Noel. When she meets me at the door I hold out the roses, and she says, “O Johnny, they’re beautiful, thank you,” and gives me a big hug. Then suppose I hold up my hand and say matter-of-factly, “don’t mention it; it’s my duty.”

What happens? IS not the exercise of duty a noble thing? Do not we honor those we dutifully serve? Not much. Not if there’s no heart in it. Dutiful roses are a contradiction in terms. If I am not moved by a spontaneous affection for her as a person, the roses do not honor her…The fact is, many of us have failed to see that duty toward God can never be restricted to outward action…The real duty of worship is not the outward duty to say or do the liturgy. It is the inward duty, the command – “Delight yourself in the Lord!” (Psalm 37:4). “Be glad in the Lord and rejoice!” (Psalm 32:11)…

If I take my wife out of the evening on our anniversary and she asks me, “Why do you do this?” the answer that honors her most is, “Because nothing makes me happier tonight than to be with you.”

Remember the children of Israel were not threatened curses in Deuteronomy simply for disobedience, but for not serving the Lord with joy and a glad heart. God does not get the glory that is due him when we obey him simply because we want to avoid a curse, or don’t want to be punished. We must labor and plead with God to kindle affections in our heart that makes our delight in Him the motivation for all of life.

Presenting flowers to your wife on your anniversary simply because it is your duty can quickly turn into legalism. You do it because you know that you have to and so you can check that box off this year. Think about how the same principle might apply to our devotional life, serving our spouse, etc. If the thinking in the original train is simply about what we must do and what could happen to us if we don’t do it; then beware, legalism might be creeping up behind you.

2. Hopelessness in the Christian walk.

What if the train does just keep going without the caboose? What if the feelings never come? Where is joy? We must help our counselee’s distinguish between the affections for God and the warm and fuzzy feelings that we don’t want them to live by. If they are thinking about the right things and then subsequently doing the right things, but their motivation is wrong (not founded in affection for God and a desire for Him to be glorified) then they will probably be living a miserable obedient life. Motivation is so important that we must illustrate it for ourselves and for those that we are trying to help.

Let’s go back to our earlier example of the man who doesn’t “feel” love for his wife to flesh this out a bit. Let’s say that after confronting the man about leaving his wife he agreed that it would be unbiblical to leave her for another woman. He even agreed that he should begin serving her. Unfortunately his wife isn’t much of a wife. He writes her a love poem every morning and places it on the nightstand so that she will see if when she wakes up. Every morning his wife wakes up and sees the folded paper, crumples it up and throws it in the trash. If this poor man is simply writing the poems because that is what he feels like he is supposed to do, and he is hoping that his own warm and fuzzy feelings will be coming along sometime soon, he is going to fall into despair. In that scenario, if the wife persists, the feelings are never going to come along.

However, if this man has embraced the modified train up front, and if his poem writing is born out of an overflow of delight in God, and a desire to see His amazing God glorified even through difficult circumstances, then he can have joy even as he is rejected (James 1:2-4, Hebrews 10:32-35, Acts 5:41). If his circumstances don’t change then we can assume that in themselves they will never produce joy. His joy must start and end in God. As he becomes more satisfied in God and sees how God continues to give him grace and joy even as his wife is rejecting him, then the caboose might just come. He might feel an additional happiness that God is enabling him to persevere in his circumstances The circumstances don’t make him happy, but seeing God’s grace in the midst of them do (2 Corinthians 12:9).

3. Ultimate trust in the flesh to change based on “positive” thinking.

I’m afraid that the original train can result in a sort of behavior modification that leaves the worship of the Father, reliance on the Son, and enabling of the Spirit off to the side somewhere. Unfortunately, all too often I think we are inclined to use the Bible as a cognitive therapy manual. Cognitive therapy is defined as “a form of psychotherapy that emphasizes the import role of thinking in how we feel and what we do”. They even use homework to help the client change during the week. Oh, how I fear that all too often we substitute a Freudian textbook with the sacred scriptures and help people change their flesh without addressing their heart and affections.

I would imagine that a cognitive therapist could use the original train illustration very effectively in their counseling and would help people change with it. We MUST not settle for behavior change. We must exhort with tears our brothers and sisters to fall in love with Jesus Christ. We must do everything in our power to show them the majesty of God and the beauty of Christ and pray and fast that God would set their heart aflame with delight in Him and affection for Him.

If that is our goal, and their subsequent motivation for change, then the actions car and feelings car will fall into place just fine.