Pursuing

I have been thinking about the concept of pursuing.  Women love to be pursed, to feel like they are worthy of being pursed.  A young man will often think about creative ways to pursue nonstop while courting, but often times after he has made his conquest that will stop and he will go onto the next goal.  I was thinking about our relationship with God and how similar it can be.  I remember how mundane my time with God had gotten; it was so much more alluring reading fun books, spending time on the computer, or watching entertaining programs than to spend time getting to know Him (not that any of these things are bad sometimes). Then when my husband, Terence, relapsed with Leukemia in February 2011, I decided I was going to lean into God and not give up.  It was a commitment I did not take lightly.  I decided to give up some of those “time wasters” for God.  I realized that I had to go after God even though it wasn’t easy.  See I always thought if God wanted me to get to know Him better He would make it easy and convenient.  I would wake up at 5 am and jump out of bed wide awake ready to spend time with him.  I assumed God would just start talking to me in a loud voice, so that I would always know the right decisions to make and that I would only say the right things all of the time.  I came to realize that God wants us to know Him as much as He wants to know us.  He gave His only Son to die for us (John 3:16).  I am realizing He must love me more than I can ever imagine to have given His Son to die for me; a person that just doesn’t get it and keeps making mistakes.  I have to keep reading God’s word, the Bible, even when I don’t think I am getting anything out of it. I have found that sometimes I need to read the Bible aloud or read the same verses over and over.  It is my way of training myself to not give up on wanting to learn from God’s word, just like an athlete doesn’t quit training even when it is hard.  I am still so far from where I want to be with God, but it seems like when I am not pursuing Him I am headed further away from him, just like in any relationship we have. I want God to know that He is important to me even though I still have a tough time knowing how to take the wonderful times I have with God and put them into my everyday life. I am not going to give up again; I am making a commitment to never quit pursuing.

Debbie

Can You Really be Transformed

For some reason I have been thinking a lot about this one question as a believer in Jesus Christ. That question is “can you really be transformed?” Isn’t that a silly question? Of course the answer is a resounding YES. But if we are really honest, it is easy to have some doubt around real transformation. We can even hear ourselves saying things like: “This part of my life can be transformed, but I am not so sure about that part.”  Or, “I’ve tried a dozen times to work this part out of my life but it just never sticks.” We can even get to the point of “learned helplessness” where we start thinking it is not even worth trying…we have been down this road before and it is the same outcome over and over again. Failure. Why try? We believe in what Jesus did on the cross and we also believe he is coming back again. We know that he has saved us from our sins and he has enormous grace for us as we continue to stumble. But we just can’t get fully to the point of real transformation in some parts of our life. So even though the obvious answer to “can you really be transformed?” is yes, the life reality is that we have some doubt. Not always and not everyone, but this happens more than we would like to think as believers. There is something here that bothers me about this issue of real transformation. A few scriptures will set this up.

Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will (Romans 12:2, NIV).

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here! (2 Corinthians 5:17, NIV).

These scriptures talk about real transformation. It is supposed to be real, nothing holding it back. After struggling with this for several weeks, God seemed to whisper an answer to me that took me back to my own bone marrow transplant. I started looking at the biology of what happens in bone marrow transplant. Essentially the recipient’s bone marrow is wiped out and the donor’s bone marrow (in most cases stem cells) becomes the new system. There is even a DNA change. In my case, I had a female donor (my sister). Normally, a detailed blood test for a male will come back 46 XY. That means 23 pairs of chromosomes with the gender chromosome as an XY (male). What is my DNA chromosome structure now in my blood? It is now 46 XX. 23 pairs of chromosomes with the gender chromosome now an XX (female). It’s just in the blood, so everything is ok (smile).  I really have been transformed physically, right down to the DNA chromosome structure. Everything is new. There is not one part of my blood that has not been transformed. What an amazing miracle that happens in the physical core of how our bodies are made. And here is the complete whisper God gave me on this thought. “Don’t you think if I can design your body in such a way and give medical science the ability to do this miraculous transformation of the physical blood that I can figure out a way to do the same transformation in the spiritual realm?” Wow, what a thought. I certainly have no doubt about the physical transformation that happened to me in April 2011. Given that we serve the creator of the universe and all that happened through Jesus, why do we have any doubt that real spiritual transformation can occur? Well, we shouldn’t have any doubt. We just need to receive it, believe that it is done, and live a life that is holy and pleasing to God (Romans 12:1). Real transformation is REALLY possible.

Amazed by His Love,

Terence