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Author and pastor John Ortberg in describing some early conversations with his mentor, Dallas Willard, confessed that even as a pastor, he had no idea how transformation happened.

But if you have been reading these blogs, you know how it happens! Scripture is clear:

Train yourself for godliness. (1 Timothy 4.7)

I was reminded of this again as I finished listening to The Talent Code, which talks about how Deep Practice, Ignition, and Coaching develop “talent” for anything from playing soccer to doing mathematics to playing a musical instrument or singing.

John Ortberg finally learned from Dallas Willard: “Spiritual transformation is not a matter of trying harder, but of training wisely.”  (From The Life You’ve Always Wanted) Dallas Willard said, “Grace is not opposed to effort, it is opposed to earning. Earning is an attitude. Effort is an action.” (From The Great Omission: Reclaiming Jesus’s Essential Teachings on Discipleship)

Transformation results from a combination of God’s work through the Spirit and our cooperation through discipline. The farmer can’t make the seed grow, but the farmer does have to prepare the ground and plant the seed.

And He said, “The kingdom of God is as if a man should scatter seed on the ground, and should sleep by night and rise by day, and the seed should sprout and grow, he himself does not know how. For the earth yields crops by itself: first the blade, then the head, after that the full grain in the head. (Mark 4.26 – 28, NKJV)