October 29: Embracing the Gift of Transformation
- Scripture: Romans 12:2 — “Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.”
- Reflection: We return to the concept of being reshaped by transformation. We are enough, just as we are, and beloved. Yet we are also becoming more wholly human when we journey along the Way. Not better, not perfect, not ‘good’. Rather whole and whole-hearted. Entirely, imperfectly human.
Priest, author and educator Barbara Brown Taylor says, “Like every believer I know, my search for real life has led me through at least three distinct seasons of faith, not once or twice but over and over again. Jesus called them finding life, losing life, and finding life again, with the paradoxical promise that finders will be losers while those who lose their lives for his sake will wind up finding them again. [Matthew 16:25] In Greek the word is psyche, meaning not only “life” but also the conscious self, the personality, the soul. You do not have to die in order to discover the truth of this teaching … You only need to lose track of who you are, or who you thought you were supposed to be … loss is how we come to surrender our lives—if not to God, then at least to the Great Beyond—and even those who profess no faith in anything but the sap that makes the green blade rise may still confess that losing really has helped them find their ways again …”
“I thought that being faithful was about becoming someone other than who I was, in other words, and it was not until this project failed that I began to wonder if my human wholeness might be more useful to God than my exhausting goodness …” (full article: https://cac.org/daily-meditations/becoming-fully-human-2018-03-30/)
Welcome change. Embrace uncertainty and imperfection. God transforms our utter humanity into sacred purposefulness. - Spiritual Practice: Look in the mirror, and say to yourself, “I am wholly human and wholly loved.”
Song:
- Beyond the Storm by Novaia: https://youtu.be/XaMVszgngrI?si=1ZmwHf5c23l3MIv1
“Transformation is a process, and as life happens, be patient with the changes.” — Erin Hanson
Oct 29 Daily Devotional