It Ain't Necessariiy so!

Why? I ask myself. What difference does it make that no one is watching?

I answer the phone and after a short conversation where my advice is solicited, the voice on the other end of the line says. ‘But I don’t have your personality.’ No, I think, you don’t. But what does that have to do with anything? In future conversations, this same person keeps referring to the opinion I had offered previously saying, ‘I’m trying hard to follow your advice, but I don’t have your personality.’ Really, I think. I guess nothing has changed there.

In the middle of a discussion in a small groups setting, one of the participants said, ‘Jesus can’t expect us to do what he says because he was different than we are.’ And just what does that prove, I wondered? Yes, we are all different from each other - but that is no an excuse!

What strikes me looking back at these three responses that span several years, is the thread in them all. Apparently one can only elect to do the difficult, only attack the unknown, if it is what we already naturally are. Obviously one cannot be asked to change who they are. The other person didn’t have to. They were either ‘special’, already that way, or didn’t care what others thought! We are none of these. Why should we be expected to change to something we are not?

But was that who they always were? Not necessarily. What you see today, in any person has been a lifetime in the making. The question we need to ask ourselves really is, ‘Do I want to become someone different? Do I actually want to change?’ We need to be honest with ourselves as to what we have decided. We need to take ownership of who and what we are, because we are the only people who can do that. And if something needs to change, if we need to act in a certain way, it is up to us, and only us, to make it happen. I can hear you saying, ‘But that isn’t easy to do!’ and my answer would be, 'I know it isn’t... But I also know that it is worth all the time and energy that we need to put into it.'

“God, make a fresh start in me,

shape a Genesis week from the chaos of my life.”

Psalm 52.10 MSG

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NUDGINGS: a journey into the unknown

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