The J-Curve

I just finished John Ortberg's latest book called "The Me I Want to Be." It's really a good book; its basic message is that your life is God's project, not yours, so your goal should be to line up with God's plan for your life and to ease up on the "trying harder" so many of us all are prone to do.

The reward for reading the book is Ortberg provides great encouragement and sound biblical teaching to back up some of his, and others' teachings. Things like how to flow with the Spirit, renew your mind, redeem your time and deepen your relationships. I happen to love the author's sense of humor as well; he's a very funny guy.

One of my favorite sections of the book is about the "J-Curve." The J-Curve is the name given by experts in the learning field to describe the fact that when someone makes a change they often do worse before they start improving. When graphed their progress looks like the letter J, (see image above) with a dip in performance before things start improving.

Ortberg is a tennis player so he uses the example of hitting a backhand. Without a decent backhand you'll never go far in tennis. Many players never learn the correct way to hit one, so they only go so far with their odd stroke. If, however, someone teaches them the correct footwork, grip, form etc... they will eventually do better than they ever could have with their old improvised stroke.

Ortberg's point is that many things in life tend to get worse before they get better. The key is to do things God's way, even if at first it seems worse than the improvised way - "your way" - that you've been trying. Try it God's way and stick with it because eventually you'll get there. "Jesus," says Ortberg, "will always lead us toward growth, and growth always requires risk, and risk always means failure. So Jesus is always leading us into failure. But he never gives up on a student just because he or she fails" (201).

Where are you on the J-Curve right now. Personally I have made some changes and yet I feel like things are actually getting worse. I believe in the J-Curve. If I cling to Jesus - if I do things God's way instead of my way - I am confident I'll eventually get where God wants me to be. I believe you can too. Hooray for the J-Curve! As John Ortberg says, perhaps we ought to think of the J-Curve as the Jesus Curve.

The Me I Want to Be: Becoming God's Best Version of You by John Ortberg. Zondervan Books, ©2010. ISBN 9780310275923 (hardcover), 264p. Book website: www.themeiwanttobe.com/