WHY YOUR LIFE HACKS ARE NOT WORKING
- Jimmy Kinnaird
- Feb 3
- 10 min read
Updated: Feb 4
We Need A Renovation, Not A Filter
We live in an age that is effectively "unhinged." I made the case for this in a previous blog. We are simultaneously obsessed with "authenticity" and addicted to image management. We track habits, we "hack" our dopamine, we color-code our calendars, and we buy leather-bound journals hoping God will be impressed by the smell of fresh paper. Yet, if we are honest, a lot of us remain anxious, easily angered, and addicted to comfort. We are spiritually exhausted, not because we are doing too much, but because we are being too little.
A master carpenter can ruin your day in about five seconds. You show him a table you’re proud of—gorgeous finish, smooth legs, the kind of piece you’d post on Instagram with the caption “Blessed”. He nods politely, runs his hand along the edge… and then he flips it over. He doesn’t stare at the finish. He stares at the joints.
To the untrained eye, the surface is the whole story. But a craftsman knows the truth: the hidden joinery (structural integrity and strength) determines whether the table stands for a century or collapses the first time somebody plops down a crockpot full of roast and a plate of corn bread.
That is character. It’s not your “finish.” It’s not your spiritual filter. It’s not your ability to smile and say “I’m doing fine!” while your soul is doing donuts in the parking lot. Character is the joinery of the soul—the unseen architecture that determines whether you stand when the load gets heavy. And right now, in a culture that rewards the shiny surface over the sturdy joint, we are seeing a lot of tables collapse.
The Crisis Of The Empty Chest
Why are we collapsing? C.S. Lewis, in The Abolition of Man, diagnosed our modern condition as "men without chests."1 I offer no apology for the continual use of this analogy, there is not a more apt description. Here Lewis states that we have cultivated bright, technical minds ("Head") and we are ruled by our visceral appetites and desires ("Belly"), but we lack the stabilizing moral center ("Heart" or "Chest") to regulate them. We oscillate between being smart enough to build nuclear weapons and hedonistic enough to use them, with no character to restrain us.
Lewis provides a haunting illustration of this in The Great Divorce through the figures of the Dwarf and the Tragedian.2 A soul arrives in heaven as a grotesque duo: a tiny, shrinking Dwarf (the shriveled, authentic self) holding a chain attached to a tall, theatrical Tragedian (the fake persona used to manipulate others). The Tragedian does all the talking, feigning hurt and offense, while the Dwarf—the actual human soul—shrinks until it vanishes.
This is the perfect picture of our modern character crisis. We have spent decades polishing the Tragedian—our brand, our reputation, our "public self"—while the Dwarf within has starved. We don't need a new "life hack" or a spiritual "oil change". We need the Spirit to "thicken" the Dwarf into a solid human being. We need a renovation, not a paint job.
Character Is Not Just “Being Nice”
So, if we stop sanding the surface and start checking the joints, what exactly are we looking for? What is character?
It is easy to confuse character with personality. But character is not a personality type. Some "nice" people are spiritually hollow, and some "gruff" people are deeply faithful. Nor is it simple rule-keeping; the Pharisees were excellent at rules but dead inside.
Habitual Capability
Dallas Willard, a philosopher who thought about this more deeply than perhaps anyone in the last century (my opinion), defined character as habitual capability. It is the result of thousands of small choices that have calcified into a permanent shape.3 It is who you are in the dark.
Thomas Aquinas, the heavyweight champion of medieval theology, put it this way: Virtue is a "good operative habit".4 It is a settled disposition. It is what you do without thinking.
Here is the test: If you stand in front of a lost wallet for ten minutes debating whether to keep it, you might be honest in that moment, but you do not yet have the virtue of honesty. You are still fighting the civil war of the soul. The virtuous person returns the wallet before their brain even has time to formulate a temptation. They don’t have to “hack” their willpower because honesty has become their nature.
Christian character is the stable, Christlike shape of a whole person—Head, Heart, and Hands—formed by the Spirit over time. It is the kind of person who tells the truth when lying would be easier, forgives when revenge would feel delicious, and serves when nobody claps.
Why Christian Character Is Superior
"But wait," I hear you ask. "My atheist neighbor returns his shopping cart, donates to the Salvation Army, pulls his trashcan from the curb within six hours of the trash truck coming by, and…and composts! Can’t you have character without Jesus?"
Sure. You can have civic virtue. You can have grit. The Stoics were experts at this. But Christian Character is distinct—and yes, superior—in both its Source and its Goal.
Union, Not Willpower
Secular virtue is powered by willpower. It is "white-knuckling." It is the mantra of "Try Harder". But Christian character is powered by union with Christ. The New Testament doesn’t command us to manufacture fruit; it commands us to stay connected to the Vine.
If your plan for holiness is “white-knuckle it and hope for the best,” I admire your optimism, but that’s not Christianity. As Dallas Willard noted, grace is not opposed to effort, but it is opposed to earning.5 We train, but we train in the power of Another. Christian character is "fruit"—organic, slow, and impossible to produce without life-sap from the Spirit.
Glory, Not Just "Good Citizenship"
Secular virtue aims at "self-actualization" or being a "productive citizen". Christian character aims at glory. It aims to make you a person, as John Piper often alludes, who can stand in the blazing presence of God and not burn up.6
As C.S. Lewis famously said in the Screwtape Letters, the goal isn't just to make a horse jump better, but to turn a horse into a winged creature.7 Here we are now looking beyond renovation; we are looking for resurrection. We are becoming "little Christs".
The Anatomy Of Christian Character: A Tree In The Soil
How do we build this? We need a mental map. I’ll confess, this part has been very hard for me to picture, let alone write. I have lost track of the number of times I have started over. Truthfully, I felt like giving up. Yet, I reminded myself that for this blog, this is just a map – a snapshot of the anatomy of Christian Character. More will come on each of these in the future.
For most people, visuals help. So imagine a massive, ancient tree. This is the structure of Christian Character. It synthesizes the Transcendentals, the Beatitudes, the Virtues, and the Fruit of the Spirit.
One other thing. I hold the right to come back and do updates. I still feel like a novice when it comes to understanding, appreciating and applying Christian Character. As we look into each of these different aspects, I have the feeling that some statements I have written and the visuals that I have supplied will need to be amended to reflect a more robust representation of Christian Character.
With that clarification out of the way, let us look at the foundation of reality in which godly character must be rooted.
The Soil: The Transcendentals (Truth, Goodness, Beauty)
The tree doesn’t hang in mid-air. It is rooted in reality. In classical Christian thought, reality is anchored in the Transcendentals—objective properties of God Himself. If you read the previous two blogs you encountered a treatment of them in our modern culture, both in and outside of the church. Speaking of culture, if you try to grow your character in the shifting sands of cultural relativism, the tree will topple.
The True (Head): We submit our minds to reality as God defines it, not "my truth" or "your truth". Without this soil, we end up in narcissism.
The Beautiful (Heart): We re-order our loves. As Jonathan Edwards taught, true religion consists largely in "holy affections".8 We sin because we are enchanted by lesser beauties. Character is finding Jesus more beautiful than our idols.
The Good (Hands): These are embodied habits. Good soil isn't something the tree does; it is what the tree receives.
The Roots: The Beatitudes (Matthew 5:1–12)
Hidden underground are the Roots—the internal spiritual states found in the Beatitudes. These are largely invisible to the public eye, but they absorb the "nutrients" of grace. You can’t have a healthy tree with rotten roots.
Each Beatitude acts as a feeder root for a specific virtue in the "soil" (based on 2 Peter 1:3-11):
Poor in Spirit → Faith: Admitting spiritual bankruptcy is the only way to draw up grace.
Mourning → Virtue: You only grow in moral excellence (virtue) when you truly grieve the ugliness of your sin.
Meekness → Knowledge: Only a submissive heart can receive true knowledge without arrogance.
Hunger for Righteousness → Self-Control: You will only control your lower appetites if you have a superior hunger for God.
The Merciful → Steadfastness: Practicing constant forgiveness builds the muscle of enduring compassion.
Pure in Heart → Godliness: Singleness of focus is the essence of practicing God’s presence.
The Peacemakers → Brotherly Kindness: Reconciliation is the practical outworking of kindness.
Persecuted for Righteousness → Love: This is the summit. Enduring suffering for Jesus is the ultimate test of sacrificial Love. It is easy to love when the sun is shining; it takes a root deep in Christ to love when the world is burning you down.
The Trunk: The Cardinal Virtues
Rising from the ground is the Trunk, providing the structural strength. This is where we dust off the "Classical Toolbox" that modern evangelicals often leave in the barn.9 These are the Cardinal Virtues (from the Latin cardo, meaning "hinge"), the pivots on which all moral life swings.10
Prudence: This is not just "caution." It is practical wisdom—knowing what to do and when to do it. It is the driver of the other virtues.
Justice: This is the constant will to give God and neighbor their due. It is not just a sentiment; it is an obligation.
Temperance: Self-control. It is the ability to enjoy good things (food, drink, rest) without worshipping them. It puts the brakes on our "lizards".
Courage (Fortitude): Steadfastness. As Lewis noted, courage is just "every virtue at the testing point". It is the ability to keep going when obedience stops being interesting.11
The Limbs: The Theological Virtues
Reaching up to the sky are the Theological Virtues: Faith, Hope, and Love. Aquinas reminds us that while we can practice the cardinal virtues (even pagans can be brave), these theological virtues must be "infused" by grace. They connect us directly to God.12 They are the branches that provide shade to the community.
The Sap: The Spirit & The Word
What moves from the roots to the branches? The Spirit of God, working through the Word of God. Without the sap, the tree is just firewood.
We keep the sap flowing through "spiritual disciplines"—reading Scripture, prayer, fasting, service, silence and solitude. These aren't chores; they are how we keep our vascular system open to God’s life. You don’t read the Bible just to check a box; you read it to keep the sap moving.
The Fruit: Christlikeness
Finally, the result. Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control (Galatians 5:22–23).
Notice the Bible calls it fruit, not factory output. Fruit happens naturally when the tree is healthy. You don’t see apple trees straining and grunting to produce apples. They just... apple. Because that is what they are.
When the "Soil" of Truth, Goodness and Beauty is rejected, we get the "Works of the Flesh" (Galatians 5:19)—a chaotic plurality of "biting and devouring". But when the system is aligned, we get organic unity. The "Lizard" of lust is transformed into the "Stallion" of holy desire.13
The Carpenter is at Work
Christian character is the stable, Christlike shape of a whole person—Head, Heart, and Hands—formed by the Spirit over time. It is the process where the Spirit does what Eustace Scrubb (the boy-turned-dragon in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader) could not do for himself: He tears off the dragon skin and makes us into sons and daughters of the King.
Eustace tried to scrape it off himself, but he just found more dragon scales underneath. It took the Lion (Aslan/Christ) to tear deep—painfully deep—to remove the crust of the old self and reveal the new.
This might feel overwhelming. You might be looking at your own "joinery" and seeing a lot of wobble. So do I and that is okay. You can’t grow this tree overnight. Actually you can only grow it as fast as you stay in step with the Spirit.
In the coming blogs, I am going to explain this further. I will dedicate future blogs to digging deep into the Soil and Roots (what is real and how to re-order your loves), constructing the Trunk (a deep dive into those Cardinal Virtues), expanding the Branches (infusing the Theological Virtues) and inspecting the Fruit.
For now, know this: The Carpenter is already at work in you and for you. He isn't afraid of your wobbly joints. He knows exactly what He’s doing.
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, Ch. 1.
2Lewis, C. S. The Great Divorce: A Dream. HarperOne, 2001, Chapters. 12-13.
3Willard, Dallas. Renovation of the Heart. NavPress, 2002. P.142.
4Saint Thomas Aquinas. The Summa Theologica. Edited by Mortimer J. Adler et al., Translated by Laurence Shapcote, Second Edition, vol. 18, Robert P. Gwinn; Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., 1990, p. 28.
5Willard, Dallas. The Great Omission. HarperOne, 2006. P.166.
7Lewis, C. S. Mere Christianity. HarperOne, 2001, p. 216.
8Edwards, Jonathan. A Treatise Concerning Religious Affections: In Three Parts ... Logos Research Systems, Inc., 1996, p. 2.
9Kreeft, Peter. Back to Virtue: Traditional Moral Wisdom for Modern Moral Confusion. San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1992.
10Ibid, p. 59.
11Lewis, C. S. The Screwtape Letters. HarperOne, 2001, p. 161. (Letter 29).
12Saint Thomas Aquinas. The Summa Theologica. Edited by Mortimer J. Adler et al., Translated by Laurence Shapcote, Second Edition, vol. 18, Robert P. Gwinn; Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., 1990, p. 60.
13Lewis, C. S. The Great Divorce: A Dream. HarperOne, 2001, pp. 111–12.
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