Reinventive Reality

Its been said that if you dress for success, you'll be successful. We react to things that happen in our personal or professional lives and try to change a status quo, change an appearance, change a perception, change something to what our idea of it ought to be.

Over my 40 plus years, I have reinvented myself (or at least tried to) on many occasions. I've dressed a part. Talked a part. Learned a part. Or pretended a part. I believe these reinventions are misdirected. The driver is not ourselves*. It's the girl. The neighbor. The boss. The client. And reinvention is not sustainable in and of itself. There needs to be transformation.

I am in my fourth year of being a non-smoker. There is a line in the movie Dead Again that states. "Someone is either a smoker or a nonsmoker. There's no in-between. The trick is to find out which one you are, and be that." Of course, mine was not as easy as finding out which one I was and simply being that.  I can recall so many times where I tried to reinvent myself as a non-smoker. After all, it wasn't good for my health, and the social acceptance had more than waned over the years. There were countless New Years, Birthdays, and Mondays which were to be my catalyst of change. But they weren't. I needed transformation.

You see, God made me (all of us), and wants a relationship with me. At its deepest level. And smoking was a stumbling block. A wall. An idol. I knew it. And I couldn't remove it on my own. I couldn't just find which one I was and be that. It took an act of God to transform me. And He did. When I stopped doing it on my own and allowed him to own it.

I've even tried to reinvent myself with God many times. And it has always been well intentioned. To be a better "christian", a better witness, a better husband, a better father, a better person. But I have found it unsustainable in and of itself without transformation. And He is in the business of transformation.

How many of us walk around wanting to be things that we (or others) think we need to be—to reinvent ourselves? I know I stupidly battle others' impressions of me and lose sight of God's perception. His eternal perception. He had something in mind when he made me. Why would I want to be anything different.

What do you wish to change. To reinvent? Can you just muster up the mojo and do it on your own?





*Surely we can learn new things to grow educationally or vocationally. Or take up things like kayaking, or running which are good for us physically, and perhaps spiritually, but this is not reinvention, or at least not as I am talking about it.