Editorial

Be Transformed by the Renewing of Your Mind

Romans 12:2 

‘Do not conform to the pattern of this world but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.

Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is – His good, pleasing, and perfect will.’

It has been my privilege in recent weeks to lead staff devotions on this verse and unpack how it has been integral to my faith journey over many years. 

For me, the challenge of transformation has always been about the mind. In one sense, I have always been a ‘goodie two shoes’, keen to do the ‘right’ thing and behave in a way that wasn’t an embarrassment to myself or my family. There have been no years of reckless or risk-taking behaviour, no years when my Christian faith was not important to me. The most radical thing I have done is have a belly button piercing!

But allowing God to renew my mind so that I can understand His good, pleasing, and perfect will has been more difficult. One commentator says this verse is about “interpreting life through the lens of God’s Word and the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, rather than through the lens of your experience, woundedness, trauma, preferences, or opinions of others.”

Sometimes we allow past stories or narratives of deep hurt and trauma to ‘control’ our mind and to influence how we live in the future. We allow these narratives to shape who we are and how we see ourselves. We can often be bound by these stories for many years, if not a lifetime. However, these narratives can be unhelpful at best; exhausting, debilitating and unbiblical at worst. They can rob us of what God intended for our lives as we open ourselves up to the daily transformation that He offers.

On a more surface level, it is so easy to get sucked into the ‘patterns of this world’ and be people that are fearful of the future, anxious, negative, overwhelmed, ungrateful, entitled….

Once again, God invites us to renew our minds, and be transformed, so that we can be rooted in joy, gratitude, kindness, peace, purpose and be the ‘church’ that God can use to draw others to Him.

How does this happen? Too often in the church, we think some amazing spiritual experience or a one-off conversion experience or a stale, rusty routine should be enough. But it’s not! The task of allowing God to renew our minds is the daily work of being a Christian; it’s the daily expression of ‘to be like Jesus, this hope possesses me…’. We need to have practices and disciplines that re-orientate us daily to His Word, His provision, His truth and sometimes we need to be tough on ourselves, and critique and scrutinize our daily practices; what we say, what we do, what choices we make, what we choose to think about and dwell on.

One of my spiritual practices is the use of devotionals and prayers that keep me ‘on task’. I hope this prayer is useful for you too as you reflect on bringing both the ‘big stories’ and the ‘small practices’ before Him so that our minds can be renewed, and we can be a transformed people readily able to see and do His good, pleasing and perfect will.

Today - Mend a quarrel. Search out a forgotten friend. Dismiss suspicion and replace it with trust. Write a love letter. Share some treasure. Give a soft answer. Encourage youth. Manifest your loyalty in word or deed.

Today – Keep a promise. Find the time. Forgo a grudge. Forgive an enemy. Listen. Apologise if you were wrong. Try to understand. Flout envy. Examine your demands on others. Think first of someone else. Appreciate, be kind, be gentle. Laugh a little more.

Today – Deserve confidence. Take up arms against malice. Decry complacency. Express your gratitude. Worship God. Gladden the heart of a child. Take pleasure in the beauty and wonder of the earth.

Speak it again. Speak it still again. Speak it still once again.

Amen.

(Prayers for Healing. 365 Blessing, Poems, and Meditations from around the World. Edited by Maggie Oman, 1997)