Three Word Wednesday :: Inside-Out Transformation

On Monday afternoon, I already knew my week wasn’t going to look anything like I expected. My daughter had strep throat, my mother-in-law was on call to pick up Ben from school if we didn’t get out of the pediatrician’s office in time (which we didn’t), one appointment was postponed 10 days, another appointment was rescheduled from the previous week, neither of my first two childcare options were available to help me during a meeting later in the week, my own head and throat were feeling the effects a normal Kentucky spring, my husband had an unusually busy week …

I’m sure you understand.

We have all have Mondays like that. And sometimes Wednesdays too. Really, it doesn’t matter what day it is.

There are chores and kids and families and jobs and projects and deadlines and field trips and birthday parties and appointments and fevers and sports and thunderstorms and whatever else fills our days.

Sometimes I find myself wanting information on the whens and wheres and hows and whys of life. So many times I start out the week thinking my calendar is offering an accurate picture of life. It never does. Real life doesn’t fit into tidy boxes and our pre-scheduled time. {Tweet that.}

On Monday, my phone was dinging with texts between phone calls and I was scribbling new things on my calendar. And then I remember what really matters: God wants to transform me. It’s an ongoing, everyday process. And it doesn’t always means the Creator of time lets me in on the information and plans I want.

Transformation is greater than information. {Tweet that.}

I love thinking about how God is the perfecter of our faith. We can’t be perfected – as in the maturing process – without submitting ourselves to God. Although that’s indeed such a relief for those of us who want to keep trying to be better and do more, it’s still hard. It still requires approaching the throne of grace over and over and over and over again.

Especially on Mondays that offer surprises for the week. Especially on Wednesdays that have us weary. Especially on the weekends when we embrace rest.

“Who we are in our identity has been made perfect by Jesus once and for all. But our behavior is in the process of being perfected in him day by day.”

{Holley Gerth in “You’re Loved No Matter What”}

And that’s the transformation that matters, the one that changes us from the inside out.

Romans 12:1-2 is about not being conformed to this world. I especially love it from The Message:

“So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life — your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life — and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you.”

In other words, focus on God and he’ll perfect you — perfect as the verb, not the adjective.
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