Even in the midst of the world indoctrinating me and forming a person I was never created to be, the Lord was also forming me to express what I was created for. Some 50 years ago as I walked down the aisle of the church in a confession to the world that Jesus-is my Lord and Savior, I expected the words of the preacher, my Sunday school teacher and my parents to be true. Even then I wanted to prove my transformation was verifiable, sustainable and complete. I could not prove it, I saw no change in my life from my simple walk down the aisle, so I walked down the aisle again the next Sunday to the horror of my preacher and parents. Surely, they weren’t lying, there had to be something wrong with my execution of their instructions, so with more earnest I did it a second time. The beauty of this scene is I told no one as even in a child’s heart I didn’t want to skew the outcome. I believed that Jesus in my life was the source of my transformation. Transformation has been my life long quest, I was given a deep abiding faith that Jesus, Holy Spirit and Father would bring me into this love relationship with them and I would be transformed into their very image. Even in the last few months my 93 year old mother recanted the experience with that same astonished look on her face. I thank God for her witness even in this autumn part of my life as I struggle to capture the magnitude of the transformed life.
The contrast between the two worlds for me has grown exponentially until in these last few years the Lord took the ugly veil off the world I left to show me the absolute cruelty of it. I can now look back on it and see the markers the Lord put in place. I look back on this beginning of believing Jesus and expecting to see change in my life as the structure He built in me that housed my process.
The fruit of the transformed life is living selfless and learning to love. I came out of a life deeply immersed in transactional love. Let me say here this transactional love is the very building blocks of strongholds and demonic structures in our lives that are kept alive by self preservation. For most of us we land here because of traumatic circumstances where self preservation is all we think we have. Walking out of these strongholds and demonic structures is the very process of transformation. My double yes to Jesus as a nine year old child began the work and even though at nine years old I couldn’t point to any change in my life, the deep core belief that Jesus could transform my life to look like Him had “preached the gospel” to those around me who were astonished that I would break church tradition. The beginning of not looking to man for my salvation, but looking for an encounter with Jesus. What a gift my Savior gave me.
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