It’s 2016–the year I will graduate college and the year I will be a part of the biggest leap of faith I have ever taken. It’s Race year, y’all. Whoa. If you would have asked me 2 years ago if I would be on this kind of adventure, I would like to tell you I would have trusted God and absolutely would be doing it then, but that’s not the case. I hadn’t seen myself in the way God designed me 2 years ago. I hadn’t let go of my old ways even when I saw God trying to get my attention and take them away.
I have this crazy idea that change is possible. Most of you would agree with that, but I wonder how many of us would act in a way that demonstrates it.
Too often I hear, “Oh, that’s just how he is…” or “You know them, they’ll never change..” and I really don’t like those words. I’m afraid if we keep believing those things, they will become self-fulfilling prophesies that steal joy, meaning, and beauty from too many lives.
The times in my life that were the most painful and where I was most wrecked were absolutely the times I pursued change.
I grew up mainly ignoring my problems and never considering the possibility that I would change or even needed to. Fortunately, ever since I moved out of my parents house I have been placed with people that have pushed me to not just change, but to become thw masterpiece God had designed.
Change is hard and it’s uncomfortable. The thought of change causes us to roll our eyes and breathe deep, bracing ourselves, but I’m starting to think we are going about it all wrong ways.
What if we stopped thinking about it as change, but rather refinement? What if we began to think “I’m not changing who I am; I’m becoming more who I was meant to be.” In reality that’s what it is. At first, friends and family may not understand the “why” behind everything you are doing, and I have had to learn that it’s okay. Ask them their concerns, ask them to pray with you and for you to allow God to move in both of your lives. If this refinement aligns with God’s word, keep going, they will either understand or they won’t–but nonetheless we are not here to answer to our parents calling, we are not here to be like other Christians, we are created to be like Christ.
It’s not a change in who you are, it’s chipping away at everything you weren’t meant to carry to uncover the person you were made to be.
When we focus on who we were meant to be, and all the potential we hold, the idea of being chiseled doesn’t hurt as much. Praise God for his plans in all of us!
One essential aspect of creating a masterpiece, is having all of the materials. Michelangelo couldn’t have sculpted David if there was no marble to work with. We are the marble, and we need to let ourselves be uncovered by the sculptor. Let the parts of us that aren’t who we were meant to be fall to the ground, so that only the beauty of who we truly are will remain.
We have to choose to allow ourselves to be chiseled.
