A friend once said to me, "Oh, Terry, you're so predictable!" Frankly I was a little troubled by her statement. Now I think I understand better why I was troubled and why the statement kept popping up in my memory over the years. Doesn't Romans 12 tell us to "be being transformed?" If this is truly happening then maybe some of us wouldn't be so predictable to each other. Perhaps that is why an Olympic fencing champion keeps adding to or changing her fencing approach so, as she recently said, her opponents can't "figure her out." Or perhaps that is why Clayton Kershaw, Cy Young Award winner, changed his repetoire of pitches significantly in the off season, though the already existing repetoire was already hugely successful. He wanted to stay ahead of the curve so that the hitters couldn't study him and know what to expect. Many professional athletes are constantly reinventing themselves to remain competitive or become more so, and there is a sense in which we as people of faith can be doing the same. We too are being studied and observed both by others and by our spiritual enemy. Maybe we can do and be more to keep him off balance, to keep him guessing. And certainly there are areas in our lives where by the power of the Holy Spirit we can demonstrate for others around us that we are indeed being transformed to a greater Christlikeness and not merely being conformed to a darkening world. We won't always know when that demonstration is taking place. In fact most of the time we won't, but that is part of the challenge of walking by faith. God lets us in on just enough to keep us encouraged.
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