From psalm 68 verses 1-10
Hey h,
I woke up thinking today about change or about trying to
change. I used to think that morphing was one of my strengths. I could adapt to
anything and become anyone I needed to be. Recently, in some texture within
your reply to my last letter, indirect or unintentional, it came to my mind
strongly that morphing is not change. The
morphed object or person does so to conform to an immediate shape and once
it/he/she does not need to be in that peculiar shape anymore, the true form
comes back strongly.
This tells the tale of how many changes in Christian community are not changes at all
but the worst form of peer pressure that has nothing to do with the real change
that is conforming to Christ, which is a lifetime pursuit grounded in honesty. We
morph in Christian circles much more than we change.
This is understandable. Change is hard. Habits are ingrained
as places of comfort. The other or outer versions of ourselves God seems to
speak of or want read like dreams of another plane. When we are hit with news
we roll back to the familiar. Not only overt addicts but all of us find a
quantum of solace (hehehe) in being as human as we have always been in times of
trouble, finding that self made lightning cloud or resting in the sea of what
has always been. We seem unable to wrest ourselves from all the things we pick
up along the way to help us cope with the trauma of being along the way. At best,
we are told, we can control our bad habits. We can subject them to high
purposes or delay their gratification to a more worthwhile time. We are constantly
morphing to stave off the worst consequences of being addicted to self and the
pleasure that is “feeling alright”.
Ironically, the place where we can swap the great morph
for real change is the same place I picked up the former act best. Yet, like
our brothers, sisters and I, the God we believe in is rarely the one we speak
of or act out. We believe in a God who transforms hearts and minds. His change
is far reaching and mostly uncomfortable and lifelong. We cannot deny that it
is difficult for the human heart to change but we believe in the truth that the
maker of all things human has the resources at his disposal to make us who we
must forever be.
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