Narrative Lectionary Key Verse for Today
“You were taught to put away your former way of life, your old self, corrupt and deluded by its lusts, and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to clothe yourselves with the new self, created according to the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.”
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?
![1 Kings 17:1-16 [17-24], God’s Care for the Widow](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/56b39b61ab48de92d991a40a/bf37035e-33d5-439f-a0d6-a68b02d0f1bc/24-11-03.jpg)
