Growing up, I watched the TV show Seinfeld with my family every single week. In the years since, we’ve watched the episodes over and over and over, and the running jokes and certain show scenes have become family in-jokes over the decades.
One of the show’s central characters, George Costanza, is a hapless loser. He can’t seem to succeed in work or romance and, when he does, he inevitably botches it up. He lies, plots, overthinks, and fails repeatedly. As a result, in one episode, George stumbles upon a revelation: all of his instincts are terrible. He resolves to do the opposite of his instincts in almost every situation, assuming that the outcome can only be good.
He turns out to be right! He orders a different sandwich against instinct; speaks to a woman he normally wouldn’t speak to; makes professional choices that resist what he might normally do. As a result, he begins to succeed—all because he stops listening to what his gut tells him to do.
Might I suggest that the Costanza approach has some benefits to the spiritual life?
Even as Christians, we struggle against sin and temptation and against our own selfish, human instincts. The New Testament speaks repeatedly about having to struggle against or master our tongues, our urges, our desires. And Paul is clear about how even in our thoughts we must practice a sort of perpetual guardianship over ourselves, capturing the things that we think and submitting them to the will of God and our knowledge of His desire for us.
So not every instinct of ours is the best. And in my experience, at least, the not-ideal instinct is the first to kick in during moments of frustration, anger, anxiety, or crisis.
When the traffic starts stacking up, is my desire first to curse or roll my eyes or get annoyed, or to thank God for the blessing of the delay? When a worrisome event occurs, is my first instinct to immediately start thought-spinning outcomes and fretting over how I might respond to each potential consequence, or to blissfully offer up the event to God and then get about my day? When I have a tiff with a colleague, what if I resisted the urge to brood on it and went and spoke with frank kindness about it to him instead?
What if we leaned into who we desire to be in Christ, rather than falling into our old patterns?
To be clear: we can’t control the work of the Holy Spirit. In the end, it is the Spirit at work within us who reforms and shapes our desires, transforms our hearts, and does the work of growing us into the person God knows we are or can be. We can’t transform ourselves. And I don’t think we need to approach our spiritual lives like a self-help exercise. But we can certainly set the stage for this holy work: we can destroy barriers, dust out the closets, and open the doors for that work and growth to occur.
A story for your consideration:
I’m an introvert to the bone. I am an introvert’s introvert. Engaging with people wears me out, even though I enjoy it. As a result, my tendency is to avoid social events and gatherings altogether. Why go when I know I’ll be tired? Why expend energy out in the world when what I really want to do is read a book?
And yet, to my frustration, I found lately that my “quiet introvert time” didn’t seem to be helping me much. I still felt tired and dull and uninspired. Even though I gave myself plenty of time to rest, I never felt recharged. I wondered why that was.
So: I Costanza-ed the situation. I started leaning in to the opposite of my instinct.
As a result, I started accepting invitations. Not more than I could handle, but more than my instinct demanded. I agreed to attend two plays with my husband. I agreed to a social event with a colleague I admire that intimidated me when I first heard about it. I started some conversations with people I barely knew. I started going out on ridge walks on Saturday mornings.
Curiously—strangely—doing all these things reinvigorated me. I came home after the brief burst of socialization and wrote more than I’d written in two months. I rested better in my downtime. I found myself feeling more fulfilled and somehow more energized in my resting time. Go figure.
My point is: sometimes we need to change. And sometimes creating the potential for change leads to more change. God will work His will, regardless—but sometimes we can open our hearts up to trying something new or resisting our impulses, and that can provide new ways and paths for Him to work.
What instincts hold you back? What impulse responses or typical reactions might benefit from a shakeup? Where can you invite God in by resisting what you’d normally do or say or think? Pick something and go: sometimes a little shift away from the instincts that choose against God can go a long, long way.
Samaritan's Song 