Transformation Begins with Reflection
Is there an area of your life where you feel frustrated? A relationship that has conflict? Ugly emotions that keep surfacing? Frustrations, conflicts, and emotions can be pointers to an area of our lives that isn’t working the way God intended.
When we trust Jesus as our Savior, we are forgiven for our sin - past, present, and future. However, we still have a sin nature. Trusting Jesus is the beginning of the journey of becoming more like Him. We have all learned ways of doing life that don’t work. The reason that they don’t work is that they aren’t the way that God designed us to live.
In Romans 12:2, we’re told to “not conform to the pattern of this world, but to be transformed by the renewing of our minds.”
How do we do that?
We BUILD our lives on God’s Word.
For an overview explanation of what this looks like, check out this video.
This week, we’re talking more in depth about the first step: Be aware.
Have you ever been sitting in your house and heard a strange noise that slowly made its way from your unconscious to your conscious mind? A dripping faucet? A rattle in the furnace or air conditioner? You can choose to ignore it and hope it’s all fine and goes away, or you can pay attention to it and see if it’s an indicator of a larger, more significant problem.
When we have issues in our lives - whether they’re subtle like a dripping faucet, or much louder and harder to ignore - we have a choice. We can ignore it, hoping it goes away. We can numb ourselves to it through busyness, food, shopping, alcohol, endless social media surfing, or whatever our anesthetic of choice is. (I’m totally guilty, by the way.) Or, we can choose to be aware of it and pay attention to it. We can look more closely and see if there’s a deeper problem that needs addressing.
If we want to see change and growth in our lives - if we want to build our lives on the foundation of God’s Word and be transformed by renewing our minds - then it begins with being aware of where there are problems.
One way of becoming aware of these things is through reflection.
In our busy world, who has time to reflect? That’s half the problem, isn’t it? We’re so busy that taking time to think about our lives doesn’t happen often. The result is that we keep on struggling with the same things and fall deeper into frustration and farther from God’s plan for our lives.
Reflection doesn’t have to be a long, involved process. One possibility is to set aside a little time, even 30 minutes, once a week to reflect on the week. It could be part of your Sunday afternoon or evening or some other day of the week that makes sense to you. Ask yourself what worked the past week and what didn’t. There are reflection questions below that you can ask yourself. Writing down the answers in a journal can also be helpful. It doesn’t have to be fancy, flowing language. Bullet points work just fine, too. Over time, you may see a trend of the the same things that aren’t working well, or certain emotions you’re struggling with on a consistent basis.
For more information about the entire BUILD method, download the free overview here.