Metamorphosis

I have a secret for you.

Shhhhhh...come in really close so I can whisper. Closer.

Change is hard.

Actually, that's not a huge revelation, but at least I have your attention.

Change is hard. Anytime you're dealing with change, there's going to be difficulty, but transforming the way we think can be the most trying.

For though we live in the body, 

we do not wage war in an unspiritual way,

since the weapons of our warfare are not worldly,

but are powerful through God for the demolition of strongholds.

We demolish arguments and every high-minded thing

that is raised up against the knowledge of God,

taking every thought captive.

2 Corinthians 10:3-5

Recently, I wrote about a moment in a dressing room, and the resulting realization that I had given up hope of ever being at a semi-healthy weight. I was depending upon my own strength, forgetting that my God is El Gibbor, the Mighty Warrior. 

If I'll get out of His way, He will fight with me and for me, going before me in battle. In order to do this, though, I'm going to have to be transformed by the renewing of my mind, taking every thought captive.

God's word says our weapons of warfare are spiritual and powerful through God for the demolition of strongholds. I looked up the exact definition of stronghold:

1. a place that has been fortified so as to protect it from attack 

2. a place where a particular word or belief is strongly defended or upheld.

Throughout our lives, Satan and our own sinful natures have created strongholds in our minds: fortresses built with steel beams of intense hurt and the bricks of repetition. These are places where our beliefs about ourselves are strongly defended and upheld.

But if these beliefs are counter to God's word and His will for us, they must come down.

Winning wars is about demolishing strongholds again and again.

But how exactly do we take every thought captive? How do we know if it's against God's will? 

Through the transformation that comes from the renewal of our minds.

Therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God,

I urge you to present your bodies as a living sacrifice

 holy and pleasing to God;

this is your spiritual worship.

Do not be conformed to this age,

but be transformed by the renewing of your mind,

so that you may discern what is the

good, pleasing and perfect will of God.

Romans 12:1-2

These are the verses I think about anytime I think about my body because it talks about presenting our bodies as living sacrifices. However, through study and a lot of prayer, God opened this verse up even more, and printed it in a brand new way on my heart.

I was not only made BY God, I was made FOR God, and for His purposes. He wants me to lay my entire being - my love for food, my imperfections, my abusive mind - down at his feet. He wants me to give it to Him, so He can transform me, so HE can renew my mind and show me His will for me. He wants to demonstrate how, though His great compassion and mercy, He can provide, when I lay myself down as a sacrifice.

In the Greek, the word for transformed is metamorphoo (with a thing over the last o that I don't know how to type). It is where we get the word metamorphosis.

The Greek word for renewing is anakainosis, and it means renovation, a complete change for the better.

Metamorphosis into the women and men God wants us to become can only happen with a complete renovation of our minds - our thoughts, feelings, and desires - so that God's good, pleasing, and perfect desire for our lives can be discerned.

And renovation can't happen without demolition...the strongholds must come down.

A caterpillar has the makings of a butterfly within him in a drastically simplified form. He can eat and eat and eat, and grow and grow and grow. But he can't just change into a butterfly. He doesn't just sprout wings and begin to fly.

He has to be transformed.

Within the chrysalis, his body literally demolishes itself so that the old can be used to give life to the new. All the energy that was once used to sustain the caterpillar is now used to compound what was within all along. Only by doing this can he grow wings, emerge, and take flight.

Metamorphosis.

It's time, my friends. It's time to give it over to God, let him demolish and destroy the bad, so the energy that was formerly used to keep us crawling on the ground can be diverted into developing those things He placed in us so long ago. It's time to sprout wings, and eventually, we will fly.

Faithfulness and Failure

Let me ask you a question. In which of the following two scenarios am I more successful?

1. I'm faithful to my husband and try to be the best wife I can be, but I don't get the attention I want from him; OR
2. I'm unfaithful to my husband, but I find the attention I seek in others?

I think most people will SCREAM at this point, FAITHFUL TO YOUR HUSBAND! ARE YOU INSANE?!

Never fear. I have not lost my mind; I am not unfaithful; he gives me plenty of attention.

Nevertheless, I've been having a REALLY hard time lately emotionally, and the above question is a mediocre metaphor for what God has been showing me. (I'll explain, I promise.)

When I say I've had a hard time, I mean to say engaged in full-on spiritual warfare. 

I had been praying and sobbing my way through it for days, when finally, I hid at church Sunday, crumpled on the floor of the dark, abandoned sanctuary. 

The church pianist found me there, bawling and praying. She prayed over me. Then, once she left,  I quite literally prayed through Romans 8 and Ephesians 6 (particularly the part about putting on the armor of God).

Why, you may ask, was I struggling so horribly? Was someone dying? Had my husband been unfaithful? Had my kids been hurt.

Nope...I felt like a failure.

It sounds so silly, right? Nevertheless, it was what I felt, and it was crushing me.

The enemy whispered in my ear over and over, that I wasn't successful in ANY area of my life: wife, homemaker, leader, businesswoman, writer...FAILURE.

The name followed me around like a cloud; it pressed down on me. It was suffocating.

FAILURE.

The prayer session on the sanctuary floor FINALLY lifted the dark veil, and I felt happier than I have in quite some time during the worship service.

Let's face it...this hasn't been the only time I've been reduced to blubbering lately. God has been working in my life in big ways, and sometimes, that can be painful...but MAN, it's worth it.

That night, during some much-needed time away from everyone, I started a book called Victory Over the Darkness: Realizing the Power of Your Identity in Christ by Neil T. Anderson. This morning, I read Chapter 2, and shed tears of joy as I read aloud who GOD says I am...

and let me give you a hint, it's NOT a failure.

Yesterday, I went to a Zumba class at the Y. During one of the last songs, I stopped early on the squats. I hate when I do that, I thought. I feel like such a failure.

I chased the thought away, immediately. I've had enough of the failure nonsense over the last week.

I said to myself, Alissa Shea, you have just completed a class you walked out of 6 months ago. You are walking out happy, with your head held high because you were faithful and came to work out.

Did you catch that? I was faithful because I showed up and did my best.

It was in that moment that it hit me: 

I have been looking at whether I'm a success or failure based upon my perceived outcome, instead of my obedient action. I was tied up in whether people were responding to what I was doing, instead of focusing on the fact that I'm just doing what I've been called to do, despite the outcome.

Do you see the similarity in the introductory example now? It's obvious to just about everyone that being faithful to my husband makes me more successful than getting attention, but that's not how we think most of the time is it?

When the blog doesn't get enough hits...

When my husband doesn't tell me I'm beautiful...

When no one notices what I've done...

When people don't respond to my messages...

When me team doesn't perform well...

When no one shows up to the study...

At various times, and definitely recently, I've looked at each of those outcomes and taken them personally. It sounds so shallow doesn't it? Well...it is, but it's the truth.

However, if I've been faithful, if I've done what I truly believe God wants me to do, then I haven't failed.

What, then, shall we say in response to these things?

If God is for us, who can be against us?

Romans 8:31

Here's the bottom line: I know Whose I am. Each and every day, I'm praying that He will guide my paths and make them straight.

For you are all children of God

through faith in Christ Jesus.

Galatians 3:26

In all your ways acknowledge him,

and he will make your paths straight.

Proverbs 3:6

And no matter what, even when I misstep, even when I feel like I've failed, He can use it for my good.

We know that all things work together for the good of those who love God: those who are called according to His purpose.

Romans 8:28

Even when I let the deceiver fool me into feeling like a failure, God can take it and use it for good in my life. And I'm hoping, through my sharing, He can use it in yours, as well.

I foresee a lot of blog posts about this in the coming weeks as I work my way through the book. I would challenge you to come along with me. 

Do you fully understand your identity in Christ? Do you fully appreciate the miracle of what's been done for you, and the position it's put you in? Do you fully understand what it means to be adopted as a child of God?

I don't think I do yet. But I'm on my way.