February 18, 2024
Who am I becoming?
It’s a key question that we face as followers of Jesus. The religious word, ‘disciple’ is from a word in Greek that simply means student or apprentice. The goal of an apprentice of a rabbi was to become like the rabbi by copying their pattern of life.
So when we ask the question of ourselves as to who we are becoming it is a question of who we are following. In fact, it’s a question that all of us face as humans. All humans, at all times, whether passively or actively, are being formed into the image of someone or something…
So then the next question is:
What is forming me?
Social psychologists, writers and preachers such as Dallas Willard and John Mark Comer and many philosophers through the years, point out that we are ALL being formed by the stories, habits and relationships in which we embed ourselves. The key question is
- whether we will notice what these things are making us into (the end result) and
- whether we will be intentional in reframing them.
So, for example, the story I tell myself about my identity and worth can be shaped by the wider culture or by what scripture says about my identity in Christ. The relationships I have and how they encourage or discourage me or how emotionally healthy they are, will shape me. My relationship to online media will mould me for good or ill. My workplace or the family I grew up in may frame the meaning I attach to my life. The habits of work-life balance will form me. The list could go on. We are formed by so many influences.
But what are they forming me into becoming? Someone who makes an idol of money, power, work, family, leisure or just planning for retirement or someone who by nature, is a loving servant in the image of Jesus?
Doing an audit of what’s shaping you in one column and then in the next column the projected end result if that ‘shaper’ fully had its way – that is a sobering, but helpful exercise.
How do I become more like Jesus?
Sometimes being an apprentice of Jesus is an acceptance of discovering God’s presence when I have no control of the outcomes. So it’s not all about action, works and pro-activity. Don’t hear me say that. However, as we see in the life of Jesus, day by day, we are called to make active choices embedding our lives in stories, habits and relationships that shape us for the good. That’s why we have focused in our small groups on good spiritual habits. Over time, conscious habits create a kind of muscle memory that cause instinctive responses of grace. So, for example we make a habit of looking at the person who is serving us in the shop. We see them as a person, not as a means of getting service. Slowly, that habit leaks into other relationships where we no longer view people instrumentally – but as made in Jesus image. That’s just one habit (that of noticing others) amongst dozens that make us more loving quite aside from the spiritual practices we have been learning in small groups. That’s how we become like Jesus to which we could add – reframing the stories we tell about our lives and reframing our relationships.
Waiting to be transformed one day?
So, stories, habits and relationships…
I choose the big story of a world being transformed by God and I, as an image bearer, having a part to play in that big story. I choose day by day, micro-habits and rhythms of grace that make me more like Jesus. I choose relationships that help me to grow and serve and love. And in and around my choices, the grace of God breathes and infuses those traits with his presence, so they become so much more than a self-improvement course, but rather, something transformative.
I am not just waiting to be transformed one day in the sweet by and by. The process of being an apprentice means the reframing of life begins now. And with God’s Spirit, it can happen wonderfully.
May it be so for us.
Julian Holdsworth
BSBC Pastor