The Life You've Always Wanted

Author: John Ortberg
ISBN: 0-310-21214-6
Publisher: Zondervan
Review:
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I picked up this book looking for a light read, but I was pleasantly surprised at the insight it contained. The subject of the book is spiritual disciplines and Ortberg adroitly navigates this potentially dangerous ground by focusing on the purpose of the disciplines, namely, spiritual transformation. He uses the word "morph" to illustrate the concept of transformation through its use in New Testament. We start our human lives as transformed souls. Sin has transformed us into ugly, misshapen caricatures of what we were intended to be. God has, in His infinite wisdom and mercy, chosen to enter our world so that we can be "morphed" or restored to a new and, I would venture, better state.

But how many of us fail miserably in achieving that state? We seem resigned to marginal change. Instead of true virtue we settle for "boundary markers" to help us identify those within the church and those without. Boundary markers are acceptable as long they themselves are biblically sound. Indeed the chief marker could be considered love. "By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another." Ortberg is challenging us to re-examine this condition in which we find ourselves and realize that it is possible, and even expected, for a Christ-nature to be found in us.

Training is Ortberg's recommended overarching strategy to overcoming the flesh and ensuring that change is inevitable. We have a choice to make. We can allow ourselves to become submerged in the details of life so that our life is all about getting stuff done. However, Olympic athletes train with a specific goal and all other competing interests are subordinated to that goal. Are we not running a race? We must choose to run with the intention to win, and therefore all competing interests, although not intrinsically evil, must be taken captive for the purpose of winning the race.

I won't go into all the details, but Ortberg focuses on the following disciplines: celebration, slowing down, servanthood, confession, Spirit guidance, secret works, meditation, developing a rule of life and last of all suffering. One theme that I will touch on which is repeated many times is the concept of the well ordered heart. Ortberg quotes Augustine to define a well ordered heart in terms of loving the right thing, to the right degree, in the right way with the right kind of love. Indeed that is a lofty goal, that when we love, we love in those ways. It would eliminate many falsehoods in our lives. Is a well-ordered heart realistic? Well, I would view that goal as a destination, and as long as we are making daily progress towards that destination we can have hope that it will one day be a constant reality in our lives. But we must make the choice to pursue, single-mindedly, such a worthy destination. Without that decisive choice and the ordering of our lives around it then it will forever remain just a hope.