Narrative Lectionary Key Verse for Today
NL Daily Devotion for Monday, July 26, 2021
by R. M. Fergus, Clergy Stuff
Change isn’t easy. I used to think wasn’t possible. I remember as a teenager being so deeply unhappy about many aspects of my personality—those things I knew drove a wedge between me and my peers. But I had no idea how to be different than I was. For years I simply concluded that I was right and they were stupid in order to preserve my fragile ego.
In my early 30s, I got into the recovery community. And not in a casual way. I mean I dug deep and looked hard and wrestled mightily and guess what? I changed. No, I wasn’t rendered perfect, and yes, I still retain some of those old personality quirks, but the transformation was real and I released a three decades of self-hatred and pain and achieved a measure of acceptance and serenity. God did this for me and with me and through a whole bunch of amazing and broken and recovering people and I am ridiculously, incomprehensibly, unspeakably grateful.
God loves us exactly as we are. And God calls us into a transformed life. Change is possible.
Have I experienced significant change in myself or others? How can God transform me?