“If you could change anything about yourself, what would it be?”
It’s an interesting thought I’ve recently seen a new side of, this wish list idea of what we would make new about ourselves. First, I have to back track so you know where I’m coming from.
I’m often not good at making myself read non-fiction books, but I never regret when I do. I find that the best benefit I get from them is not always the information I read but the thoughts they provoke. And such is the case when I picked up Blue Like Jazz (Donald Miller). I just started and can’t even say yet if I would recommend it but there is a particular thought he introduced that began to spiral in my mind.
Miller writes:
“Everyone wants to be fancy and new. Nobody wants to be himself. I mean, maybe people want to be themselves, but they want to be different, with different clothes or shorter hair or less fat. It’s a fact. If there was a guy who just liked being himself and didn’t want to be anybody else, that guy would be the most different guy in the world and everyone would want to be him.”
I immediately thought of a question that we often ask customers in Mary Kay, “If there were one thing you could improve about your skin, what would it be?”
Sure, it’s a selling technique but the truth is we don’t have to prompt people to come up with something. People already have a wish list and, when we ask, they just pick one thing from this pre-created list.
And when I asked the question at the beginning, did your mind start scrolling through your own wish list? Or maybe you have several. Maybe you wondered if I was talking about a change physically, or a personality change, or a character trait, or something different entirely. Because if you are like me then chances are you have a separate wish list for each different area.
Miller goes on:
“The whole idea of everybody wanting to be somebody new was an important insight in terms of liking God…
“God said he would make me new. I can’t pretend for a second that I didn’t want to be made new, that I didn’t want to start again. I did.”
From there on, my mind just went crazy and that’s when I realized I needed to write, cause I needed to resolve this random tangent.
So, we want to change. We want to be made new. Christ wants to (and can) make us new.
“He washed away our sins, giving us a new birth and new life through the Holy Spirit.” –Titus 3:5
“And the one sitting on the throne said, ‘Look, I am making everything new!’” – Revelation 21:5
There are 2 trails this can lead down: the perspective of unsaved people and the perspective of Christians
Briefly on the unsaved, consider if we started sharing the gospel with the understanding of this view point. I know it would change the way I approach people. I have what they want!
Now, I’m going to continue on assuming you are a Christian and understand the fact that you already are new in Christ. We know we can’t continue to be who we used to be.
“You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; to be made new in the attitude of your minds; and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.” – Ephesians 4:22-24
What does this have to do with our wish list? Well, I think we might just get a new one of those too. God’s wish list for us doesn’t real match the one we have for ourselves. Have you ever considered there might be traits you want to change that God actually had a reason for putting in you?
I debated this idea initial when it first came into my head. I thought, “But we do have a fallen sin nature. There are aspects of us that need redeemed.” True, but who we are at our core is EXACTLY who God created us to be. Let me repeat that, who we are at our core is EXACTLY who God created us to be. When we want to change that, we’re going against the ultimate design plan of God himself.
Before you think I’m saying we’re perfect (we’re not) and that we don’t have to change anything (see Eph 4:22 above), listen to this.
“For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight.” – Eph 1:4
“Before the creation of the world…” there was no sin. It was only after creation that sin entered the world.
I’m no theologian but what I’m thinking is that God’s original design for us was holy and blameless and that at our core, we are designed that way. My belief is that the enemy can not create, so anything that is in us was designed good. Sin then came and corrupted that.
“When Adam sinned, sin entered the world. Adam’s sin brought death, so death spread to everyone, for everyone sinned.” – Rom 5:12
Although there may be holes in my logic, here is the conclusion I’ve come too:
When Christ makes us new, he does not change who we are. Instead, he takes away the sin that has corrupted who we are.
So look at your wish list.
Do you want to change the sin in your life? Or do you want to change who God has created you to be?
