AFTER THE ATTIC LIGHT: Why Reform Must Become Character

The attic light is on now. We can see the dust. We can name the junk. We can even haul it out in black trash bags and stack it neatly on the curb. But if the foundation is cracked, you can repaint every room and still wake up one morning with a door that won’t close.

That was the gift of The Light in the Attic series—God’s Word turning on the switch so we could finally see what had been hiding in the rafters of the house we inherited. We found the “blueprint” again. We remembered what the house was meant to be. We followed Josiah down that five-step pathway—Remind, Review, Refocus, Refine, Reform—because renewal isn’t a mood. It’s a movement. It’s the courage to “test and examine our ways, and return to the LORD.” (Lamentations 3:40, ESV)

And yet, if you’ve read the Scriptures with open eyes, you know the story does not end with a ribbon-cutting.

It ends with a sentence that lands like a gavel.

After Josiah does everything a reformer could do—after the idols are pulverized, the corrupt practices dismantled, the Passover restored—God’s Word gives us a line that feels like a cold wind through a newly cleaned room: 

“Still the LORD did not turn from the burning of his great wrath.” (2 Kings 23:26, ESV)

How can that be?

How can reform be real—visible, tangible, aggressive—and still not be deep enough to stop the judgment?

That question is not ancient trivia. It’s a mirror. It forces us to confront the terrifying distinction between a change of policy and a change of person. It brings us to the threshold of our new series: Wide Witness, Deep Roots. Because as we are about to discover, you can clean an attic while the foundation of the house crumbles.

The Rubber Band Effect

When the leader is gone, what remains? That is the ultimate test of any renewal movement.

Josiah’s reforms were not imaginary. They were sweeping. They were costly. They were courageous. They were public. They were measurable. You could drive from town to town and see altars torn down, “high places” defiled, idols crushed into dust. You could point to statutes, policies, ceremonies, and new rhythms. It was a wide witness.

But when Josiah died in battle, the national soul snapped back like a rubber band. The next king “did what was evil in the sight of the LORD,” and so did the next one, and the one after that. (2 Kings 23:32, 23:37) The reforms were wide—but they were not deep.

The speed of the reversal is nauseating. It reveals a brutal lesson for our own unhinged age: a culture can be pressured into better behavior for a season without ever learning to love what is good. And when the pressure lifts—when the leader leaves, when the consequences feel distant, when the crowd moves on—what you love resurfaces.

That is why “values” matter so much, even if we rarely talk about them in church.

Your values are not your social media posts. Your values are not your bumper sticker slogans. Your values are not what you say you believe when the room is watching.

Your values are what you protect when it costs you something. They are what you reach for when you are afraid. They are what you excuse when you are angry. They are what you secretly envy when you think nobody is looking.

Values are the deep currents. Behavior is the surface. And a surface can look calm right up until the tide turns.

Judah’s tragedy was not merely that they failed to execute reform. It’s that they did not become a different kind of people. They stopped the rituals (for a time), but they didn’t stop the longing.

The Fatal Flaw

In the last post of the series, we named the fatal flaw plainly: the reform was “wide—it covered the whole map—but it was not deep.” Josiah could change structures. He could break idols. He could restore ceremonies. But he could not reach into the human heart and reshape what the people loved.

That is not an insult to Josiah. That is the boundary line God drew around every merely human reformer.

And here is where our moment in history becomes uncomfortable.

We are living through an age of loud moral claims and thin moral roots.

We have phrases for everything and patience for almost nothing. We have hashtags for justice and a shrinking vocabulary for holiness. We can diagnose everybody else’s character defects in ten seconds—and then we cannot endure ten minutes of quiet self-examination without numbing ourselves on a screen. 

Yes, I’m on fire! And yes, I struggle too!

We are awash in opinions, but starving for wisdom. We are saturated with “takes,” but confused about truth. We are drenched in pleasure, but doubt what goodness is. We are surrounded by images, but uncertain how beauty should shape the soul.

That is not just “out there.” It creeps into the church. It is in the church.

We can build crowds without building character. We can build platforms without building saints. We can grow wide and still remain shallow. And the terrifying part is that we may not realize it until the Josiah-like leader is gone.

The Dragon Can Be Gone, But The Sickness Can Stay

We struggle to understand this because we tend to think of sin as a list of bad things we do, rather than a condition of the heart. We think if we remove the "bad thing," we are cured.

This is where the literary genius of J.R.R. Tolkien becomes a diagnostic tool for the soul. In The Hobbit, the physical dragon, Smaug, is the obvious enemy. He represents the external threat—violent, hoarding, fiery. Eventually, the dragon is shot down. The beast falls into the Long Lake. The external evil is removed.

But peace does not come. Instead, “dragon-sickness” descends upon the mountain.

Thorin Oakenshield, the leader of the dwarves, begins to act like the dragon. He hoards the gold. He refuses to share with the needy men of Lake-town. He becomes paranoid, suspicious, and cruel. He wanders the treasure room, obsessed with the Arkenstone, the “Heart of the Mountain.”

Tolkien is showing us a profound theological truth: The dragon can be gone, but the sickness can stay.

You can remove the idol (Smaug) and still keep the idol’s values (Greed). You can fire an abusive pastor (removing the dragon) but retain the culture of narcissism and power-worship that created him (dragon-sickness). You can stop a specific behavior—drinking, overspending, doom-scrolling—but retain the internal emptiness and desire for escape that drove the addiction.

This is the danger of the “Wide Witness” without the “Deep Roots.” We become people who have cleaned up our behavior but haven't cured our dragon-sickness. We have reform, but we don't have resemblance to Christ.

Men Without Chests

If Tolkien diagnoses the sickness, his friend, C.S. Lewis shows us the anatomy of the cure. In his prophetic work The Abolition of Man, Lewis argues that the modern world is producing a terrifying new species of human: “Men without Chests.”

Lewis described the human person in three parts:

1. The Head: The Intellect (Reason).

2. The Belly: The Appetites (Instincts, Desires, Urges).

3. The Chest: The Sentiments (Trained Affections, Virtue, Honor).

The ancient view was that the Head rules the Belly through the Chest. The Chest is the seat of value. It is the part of you that feels a proper sense of awe at a sunset, a proper sense of outrage at cruelty, and a proper sense of reverence for the holy. It is the stabilizer.

But, Lewis warned, we are creating an educational system and a culture that produces "Men without Chests." We are cultivating giant Heads (we have more information than any generation in history) and we are unleashing giant Bellies (we are consumer-driven, appetite-led creatures). But the middle element—the character, the virtue, the Chest—is wasting away.

Lewis writes with chilling accuracy:

“In a sort of ghastly simplicity we remove the organ and demand the function. We make men without chests and expect of them virtue and enterprise. We laugh at honour and are shocked to find traitors in our midst.”¹

Does that not describe our “unhinged age”? We are trying to build a Kingdom with people who are merely clever and hungry. It won't work.

The Scouring Of The Shire

So, where do we go from here? If cleaning the attic isn't enough, what is?

We must move from renovation to reconstruction. We must go downstairs, into the load-bearing beams of the soul.

In The Lord of the Rings, there is a chapter often skipped by the movies but essential to the book: “The Scouring of the Shire.” After the Ring is destroyed and Sauron is defeated (the Big Reform), the hobbits return home only to find that the Shire has been corrupted. It hasn't been destroyed by a dark lord; it has been ruined by petty, bureaucratic evil. Trees are cut down, ugly brick mills are belching black smoke, and endless “Rules” are posted on the walls.

It is a drab, gray, technocratic evil—the kind that sucks the joy and beauty out of life. It is the evil of “gatherers and sharers,” of systems that control rather than cultivate.But here is the key: Gandalf does not save the Shire. He stands back. He tells the hobbits, “You must settle its affairs yourselves; that is what you have been trained for.”²

The journey—the suffering, the discipline, the fellowship, the terror—had formed them. It gave them “Chests.” It gave them deep roots. Because they had been formed by their walk with the King, they were able to uproot the evil at home. They didn't just have a victory; they developed virtue.

Building A Palace, Not A Cottage

This brings us to the heart of this new series. We are moving from the "Light in the Attic" to "Deep Roots" because God is not interested in merely fixing your roof. He is interested in taking up residence in your soul.

In Mere Christianity, Lewis offers one more metaphor that will guide us. He asks us to imagine ourselves as a living house. God comes in to rebuild that house. At first, you think He is just fixing the drains and stopping the leaks (the Josiah reforms). You’re happy with that.

But then, He starts remodeling the house in a way that hurts immensely. He’s throwing out a new wing here, adding an extra floor there, running up towers, making courtyards. You thought you were being made into a decent little cottage, but He is building a palace. “He intends to come and live in it Himself.”³

This is why character formation hurts. This is why it takes time. Deep roots require deep digging.

It Could Have Been Different

Scripture tells us plainly that Judah’s judgment was not random. It was moral, covenantal, and long-accumulated—provoked by generations of rebellion and bloodshed (2 Kings 23:26-27). And after Josiah’s death, the kings and the people did not merely drift; they returned to evil quickly (2 Kings 23:31–24:1)

So here is the connecting point between the series we just finished and the one we are about to begin:

If Judah had undergone deep character formation—if the people themselves had become “Josiah-like” in their loves, their values, their worship—then Josiah’s death would not have been the end of renewal.

A single leader can ignite reform. But only a formed people can sustain it.

This is why God’s promise in the prophets is not merely, “I will give you better rules.” It is, “I will give you a new heart ” (Ezekiel 36:26, ESV). And it is, “I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts” (Jeremiah 31:33, ESV).

That is not superficial religion. That is renovation at the level of desire.

That is character.

What Is Meant By “Christian Character”

When I say “character,” I do not mean personality type. I do not mean whether you are introverted or extroverted, wired like a deacon or wired like a worship leader.

I mean the kind of person you are becoming in Christ.

Character is the settled direction of your heart, displayed through your habits, under pressure.

Character is what remains when nobody is clapping.

Character is what your spouse experiences when the church crowd is gone.

Character is what shapes your words when you’re tired, your decisions when you’re afraid, your integrity when it would be easy to hide.

And here is the critical link: character is values made visible. Values are internal commitments; character is the embodied pattern they produce.

So if we want churches that are strong when cultural winds shift, we must stop treating virtue like a decorative accessory. We must return to it as discipleship’s core outcome: Christ formed in us. 

It is painful. It is hard. It was for Paul who was in anguish over this very thing with the believers in Galatia (Galatians 4:19). Many will not even try. There are many hearers of the Word, and not doers of the Word.

Why This Next Series

The Light in the Attic series gave us a needed pathway. It showed how God uses His Word to expose the junk and call His people to look honestly and turn decisively.

But the “wide but not deep” warning forces a new question:

What kind of disciples can outlive the reformer?

What kind of church can endure when the cultural scaffolding collapses?

What kind of people can love the true, the good, and the beautiful—not as abstract ideals, but as a way of life rooted in the character of God?

That is what this next series is about. 

I have been thinking about these things for years. I have written page after page of notes, trying my best to articulate it in a way that will resonate. I have delayed putting my thoughts and especially my solutions out there. But, now is the time. So in the next blog installments, and there will be many, we are going to talk about:

• The Transcendentals (truth, goodness, beauty) and why confusion about them produces moral chaos.

• Values—where they come from, how they form, why they harden, how they change, and how Christian values differ from worldly values.

• Virtues—not as Victorian politeness, but as Spirit-formed strength (the kind that can forgive, endure, repent, and remain faithful).

• The Life and Teachings of Jesus along with other New Testament Passages—because Christian character is not a generic “be nice” project; it is conformity to Christ in heart, head, and hands.

If the last series was about turning on the attic light and beginning the clean out, this one is about going downstairs—into the load-bearing beams of the soul—and letting the Lord do the deeper work that keeps the house standing.

Because the goal is not merely reform.

The goal is resemblance.

Not merely that we look like a church.

But that we become like Christ.

---

End Notes

¹Lewis, C. S. The Abolition of Man or Reflections on Education with Special Reference to the Teaching of English in the Upper Forms of Schools. HarperOne, 2001, p. 26.

²Tolkien, J.R.R. The Lord of the Rings. William Morrow, Illustrated Edition, 2021, p. 996.

³Lewis, C. S. Mere Christianity. HarperOne, 2001, p. 205.

WIDE BUT NOT DEEP

Seven of Seven

We have walked through the five-step cycle of renewal: Remind, Review, Refocus, Refine, and Reform. It is a powerful pathway. But if we stop here—if we rely solely on our ability to execute these steps—we are in danger of repeating one of the most tragic failures in biblical history.

The story of King Josiah (2 Kings 22-23) is the ultimate case study in the limits of human willpower. Josiah was the perfect reformer. He didn't just suggest change; he enforced it. He pulverized the idols, fired the corrupt priests, and re-instituted the Passover. He scrubbed the nation of Judah clean.

Yet, the biblical postscript to this golden age is devastating. Immediately after listing these triumphs, the historian writes: "Still the LORD did not turn from the burning of his great wrath" (2 Kings 23:26).

How could that be? The reform was wide—it covered the whole map—but it was not deep. Josiah changed the nation’s behavior, but he could not change the people’s hearts. The moment he died, the nation snapped back to idolatry like a rubber band. They had stopped the rituals, but they hadn't stopped the longing. God’s accumulated wrath in judgment came swiftly, just as Huldah the prophetess had warned.

Josiah’s story shows us the absolute limit of human-led reform. Don’t misunderstand me: It is vital. It is necessary. But it is not ultimate. It can clean the outside of the cup, but it cannot make the inside clean.

This brings us to the crucial question: Why does "white-knuckled" morality fail? And how do we find a change that lasts?

The Boy Who Tried to Undragon Himself

C.S. Lewis provides a great illustration of this Josiah Paradox in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader.

We meet a boy named Eustace Scrubb—a selfish, greedy child who, through a magical mishap, turns into a dragon. The external transformation merely reveals his internal reality: he had a dragonish heart, so he became a dragon.

Desperate to be a boy again, Eustace tries to fix himself. He scratches at his scales, peeling off the dragon skin layer by layer. He steps out of the old skin, feeling smooth and renewed, only to look down and see that a new layer of scales has already grown back. He does it again. And again.

"I could see my own reflection in the water... it was no good. The rough, scaly look was there all over me just as before."

This is the failure of religious reform. We can scratch off the "scales" of bad habits. We can stop drinking, stop yelling, or start reading our Bibles. But if the nature of the beast remains, the scales will always grow back. 

We are trying to cure a heart condition with a dermatology treatment.

The Need for a Greater King

Josiah was like Eustace scratching at the scales of Judah. He was a good king, but he wasn't a saving king. He could find the Law, but he couldn't fulfill it for the people.

We need a Greater King.

• Josiah found the Book of the Law and shouted, "Obey!"

• Jesus fulfilled the Law and whispered, "It is finished."

We need a King who doesn’t just tear down idols, but who becomes the ultimate sacrifice on a cross to bear the judgment our idolatry deserves. We need a King who doesn’t just read the covenant from an old scroll, but who establishes a New Covenant in His own blood, and who, by His Spirit, writes the Law not on tablets of stone, but on the fleshy tablets of our hearts.

Theologically, this is the difference between a mirror and a surgeon. The Law (Josiah) is a mirror; it shows you that your face is dirty, but the mirror cannot wash you. Jesus is the surgeon. He doesn't just demand a clean heart; He offers a transplant.

The prophet Ezekiel pointed to this thousands of years ago: "I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh" (Ezekiel 36:26). 

The renewal King Jesus offers is eternal and internal. He doesn’t just call us to reform our lives; He gives us a new life altogether. He doesn’t just call us to clean the house; He moves in and makes our hearts His home.

We don't need a remodel; we need a resurrection.

The Responsibility to Stand Alone

There is a sobering corollary to this truth. If we rely on external culture—a Christian nation, a good church, a godly family—to sustain our faith, we will crumble when those props are removed. When Josiah died, the people drifted because their faith was in the king's reform, not their own God.

We are called to possess a faith that stands even when the culture collapses. 

Please forgive me for another Chronicles of Narnia reference, but this idea is illustrated beautifully through the character Puddleglum in The Silver Chair.

Trapped in the dark underworld, an evil Witch tries to brainwash Puddleglum and the children, convincing them that the sun, the sky, and Aslan (the Lion) are just children's stories. She almost succeeds. But Puddleglum stamps out her enchanting fire with his bare foot and declares:

"Suppose we have only dreamed, or made up, all those things—trees and grass and sun and moon and stars and Aslan himself... Then all I can say is that, in that case, the made-up things seem a good deal more important than the real ones... I'm on Aslan's side even if there isn't any Aslan to lead."

That is the heartbeat of a true disciple. When the "Josiahs" of our world die and the culture reverts to darkness, the person with a New Heart says, "I will live for the King, even if I have to stand alone.”

Taking a stand is clarifying. But you may ask, “How do I get there?” My advice is to discover where you are now on the Cycle of Renewal. Once you know that, the next question is, “Where do you need to begin this cycle today?” Consider the following:

• Do you need to start by Reminding yourself of your true identity in Christ?

• Do you need the courage for a "mirror moment," to Review your life honestly in the light of His Word?

• Do you need to Refocus your cluttered life on His priorities?

• Is the Spirit calling you to Refine your heart by tearing down a hidden idol?

• Or is it time to Reform your habits and build new structures of faithfulness?

Wherever you are on that pathway, the first step is the same. Look honestly and turn decisively. Think of the Cycle of Renewal as a descending spiral. With each circular path traveled you go deeper with God, but as you grow deeper your influence widens. Terry Walling, in his book “Deciding” wrote, “God often needs to do a deeper work in our lives before he can do a greater work through our lives.” So, turn to the only One who can bring true and lasting change.

As with the other blogs, I’ve created a worksheet to help identify where you are on the Cycle of Renewal and to take the first steps in that location to move deeper with God. It is for those who suspect they are wide but not deep. You can download the worksheet at the end of this blog.

But for now, let us close by praying two prayers together. First, the prayer of the Psalmist, who longed for this kind of deep, internal cleansing that only the Lord can do. The next prayer is one in which you commit to being proactive in your responsibilities for changes in your own life. 

The Cleansing Prayer

Search me, O God, and know my heart! Try me and know my thoughts! And see if there be any grievous way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting! (Psalm 139:23-24, ESV)

The Commitment Prayer

Father, by Your Word and by Your Spirit, give us the honesty to see the rubble in our lives and in our church. Give us Josiah’s penitent heart to grieve what we see. We don’t want a religion, We want the true soul-changing experience of knowing Christ in the power of His resurrection and to share in the fellowship of His sufferings, even becoming like Him in His death. Give us His courage to tear down the idols that You reveal. And most of all, draw us and the church we belong to back to You, our great Restorer, through the grace of our Greater King, Jesus. It’s in His name we pray, Amen.

The Cycle Worksheet

REFORM – Building New Rhythms of Faithfulness

The Six of Seven

"You can win the war but lose the peace."

Theologian Reinhold Niebuhr offered this warning to the Allied Forces after World War II. He knew that if the victors didn’t plan for a just and stable post-war world, conflict would inevitably return. His warning was a reminder of the failures of the Treaty of Versailles in 1919; the Allies technically "won" World War I, but they created conditions that led directly to the rise of Hitler and the devastation of WWII.

The lesson is simple but critical: After a purge, there is a vacuum. If you only tear down, the old weeds will eventually grow back.

This brings us to the final step in our cycle: Reform.

Filling the Vacuum

King Josiah understood this strategic shift. He knew he had to pivot from cleaning out and tearing down to adding in and building up. He realized that if he cleansed the land but left it empty, the idolatry would return.

So, Josiah filled the void with a new-old, God-honoring structure. He commanded the entire nation to celebrate the Passover. But this was no ordinary celebration. The Bible notes:

"The Passover had not been kept in Israel like that since the days of Samuel the prophet. None of the kings of Israel had kept such a Passover as Josiah kept" (2 Chronicles 35:18).

This was a massive logistical undertaking that reordered the entire nation around a central act of worship and remembrance. It involved priests, Levites, and citizens from every corner of the land. Renewal was no longer just a private feeling in Josiah’s heart; it became an embodied, corporate, and durable shared practice.

He reformed the nation's habits and its calendar around remembering God’s deliverance.

The Aggregation of Marginal Gains

We see this same principle at work in modern high-performance organizations. James Clear, author of Atomic Habits, tells the story of the British Cycling team, whose reforms transformed them from mediocrity to dynasty.

For one hundred years, British cycling was stagnant. Since 1908, British riders had won just a single gold medal at the Olympic Games. Their reputation was so poor that one top European bike manufacturer refused to sell bikes to the team, fearing it would hurt their brand image. They had the intention to win—every athlete wants to win—but they lacked the system to support it.

That changed in 2003 when the organization hired a new performance director, Dave Brailsford. Brailsford didn't start with a rousing speech or a demand for more "willpower." Instead, he introduced a boring-sounding philosophy: "The aggregation of marginal gains."

His idea was simple: if you break down everything that goes into riding a bike and improve it by just 1 percent, you will get a significant increase when you put it all together.

So, the Reform began.

Brailsford and his coaches started with the obvious mechanical tweaks, redesigning bike seats and improving tire grip. But then, they went deeper into the "rhythms" of the athletes' lives—the invisible structures no one else was watching:

• They tested massage gels to see which led to the fastest muscle recovery.

• They hired a surgeon to teach riders the best way to wash their hands to avoid illness.

• They determined the specific pillow and mattress that provided the best sleep for each rider.

• They even painted the inside of the team truck white to spot dust that could degrade the performance of their tuned bikes.

They didn't just "try harder." They reformed the environment. They built new habits into the very structure of the team’s existence.

The result? Just five years later, the British Cycling team dominated the 2008 Beijing Olympics, winning 60 percent of the available gold medals. Four years later in London, they raised the bar again, setting nine Olympic records and seven world records.

Systems Over Intentions

Perhaps, like the British team before 2003, many of us—and many of our churches—have good intentions but failing systems. We occasionally purge the idols, but we leave a vacuum, and the old weeds grow back.

Josiah knew what Dave Brailsford learned: You cannot just decide to be better; you must build new systems, processes, and habits.

If we want to see a new rhythm of faithfulness in our lives or our churches, we can't just wish for it. We have to build the structure that makes it inevitable. As my friend and recovery expert Dr. Mark Denison says:

"You don’t rise to the level of your goals, you fall to the level of your systems."

This is why so many New Year’s resolutions fail. A person has a renewed intention to get fit, but they don't reform their schedule to make time for the gym, reform their shopping habits to buy healthy food, or reform their social life to include active friends. The old systems eventually overwhelm the new intention.

Repentance that doesn’t lead to new habits is just regret.

Your Call to Reform

We must build new, holy rhythms into the very structure of our lives.

Personally:

• If you have repented of prayerlessness, you must reform your morning schedule to include a set time for prayer.

• If you have repented of greed, you must reform your budget to practice systematic, generous giving.

Corporately: A church’s true values are revealed not by its mission statement, but by its budget and its calendar. We must reform our structures to align with our refocused priorities.

• This means we fund disciple-making over mere entertainment.

• It means we schedule prayer gatherings as non-negotiable appointments.

• It means we create clear, intentional pathways for people to move from being a guest to becoming a fully engaged member of the family—pathways for membership, leadership development, and service that embody our commitment to the Gospel.

Do you know what reforms you need to make in your life? Do you know what reforms the church God has entrusted to you needs to make?

As with the previous posts, I have included a simple worksheet to help start a discussion and provide action items so that you won’t just win the people, but lose the disciple-making.

REFORM Worksheet