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MONDAY THOUGHT 11/3/08

Transformations III
 
I’m going to take a big chance on this one, so be kindly toward me, please.  First, I apologize for getting lengthy, but I could find no way to write it shorter.  Second, I am using a weird analogy.  Third, it may sound like I’m “holy bragging”; I’m not … or at least I think I’m not.  Here goes: 
 
It seems to me that there is a big difference between change and transformation.  Change is one of those goal-focused, measurable things (as in: I will increase my running distance by five percent this month).  Transformation, on the other hand, is impossible to measure.  It is dimension-less.  Imagine (and I told you this was going to be weird) a sperm approaching an egg.  This sperm’s entire purpose in its short life is to swim, to reach the egg, even though it perhaps never or barely understands its own motivation.  This is how, it seems to me, many of us live — expending all of our effort to reach some vague idea of success.     
 
But now imagine that sperm reaches the egg.  Wow!  Boom!  Ka-Pow!  A super-nuclear chain reaction takes place.  Within days (perhaps hours, if not seconds), that previous entity known as “the sperm” is beyond recognition.  And that incredible, unstoppable chain reaction continues for months, as a human being is created and grows inside his or her mother’s womb.  And then the child is born and keeps on growing, constantly becoming something new day after day, year after year.  That’s transformation! 
 
My point?  That’s what happens when we turn our lives over to God.  He doesn’t just change us.  He transforms us.  And, yes, I have proof.  (And here we go with the could-be-bragging part.) That proof is me!  No, I’m not done and I’m not perfect (in fact, far, far, far from it), but my heart, my soul, my very life have been transformed, swept up into a being, a life, an awareness and a knowing that I cold never have imagined, never have planned, never have even hoped for. 
 
And, no, it’s not about halos and steeple-handed bliss.  My life is tough, and I have more flaws than good points.  But when I look at where I’ve been, the man I once was (no, not bad, but with a self-centered, “change”-centered view of the world), the only explanation I have is that either God’s transforming hand is at work, or those chimpanzees finally pulled it off.  (About those chimps, that would be the 50 that, if left long enough in a room filled with 50 typewriters, would write the Great American Novel.  Believe that and the chimps are smarter than you!)
 
My other point:  Anything is possible.  God not only CAN transform caterpillars into butterflies and clay-footed people into men and women of faith, but He DOES it every day.  Just ask.  Oh, and enjoy the gift.  It’s pretty amazing.  Ka-Pow! — jri
 
“God from the beginning chose you.”
            –    St. Paul
                   (2 Thessalonians 2:13)