Going with the flow is easy. Blending into a crowd is easy. Just dress the same as everyone else, talk the same as everyone else, walk the same as everyone else, and you won’t stand out at all. But do we really want to live our lives as carbon copies of each other? Is that what we were supposed to do? Is that how we were supposed to live?
We weren’t intended to blend into the scenery. We were all created unique, with specific and obvious differences to make us stand out. So why do we feel like we have to fit in to the stereotypical roles the world has created? We can choose what is right. Or we can choose what is wrong. And the first step in living a life that truly represents who you actually are as an individual is choosing to change the way you think.
Did you realize that you have command over that? Did you realize you can change the way you think? That you’re not trapped in the vicious cycle of the same kind of thinking as everyone else in the world? I think our society has lost this fact. People like Copernicus and Galileo, Newton and Da Vinci, Edison and Einstein, George Washington Carver and Henry Ford, Bill Gates and Steve Jobs — they thought outside the box. They made the decision to think differently than everyone else around them, and they changed the world.
Butterfly on a rock in a steam - Glen Eyrie, Colorado Springs, CO
What’s interesting to me is how people think they can be unique and individual by copying each other. It’s common in the culture we live in. People think they’re expressing their individuality by following a fad or dressing like other people who feel the same way they do, but all they’re doing is copying someone else.
The only way to truly live a life that expresses who you are is to be honest about who you are, to yourself and to God. Today’s verse is Romans 12:2.
Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God’s will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect.
If you want to be a new person, one who is 100% you and no one else, you have to change the way you think about everything. You have to change the way you view life. You have to change the way you view people. You have to change the way you view eternity. You have to change the way you view tragedy and death and sadness and trials and unhappiness. You have to change the way you view success and failure. You can’t just look at everything the world says is good and agree. You can’t look at everything the world says is bad and agree.
You have to view your life like God views it.
Some people might say that choosing to change your thinking to be like God’s is just trying to copy God instead of being yourself. Read the verse again. It doesn’t say that God will change you to be like Him if you change the way you think. It says that God will transform you into a new person. Not a copy of Himself.
If He wanted copies of Himself, He would have created them. But He didn’t. He created us. And He did it for a reason.
At the end of the day, we all have a choice. We can either choose to follow the trends and popular opinion of the culture we live in. Or we can choose to change our thinking to be what God has declared in Scripture. Both choices have consequences, but only one will transform you into a new person.
Always Peachy 