Transformation.
Every good story, whether in a book, movie or TV shows, has characters that are transforming. Harry Potter is transforming from a young boy into a Wizard, the Pevensie children transform from school kids on holiday to Kings and Queens of Narnia. We love super-hero origin stories. The heroes transform to meet the challenges and villains who they would not be able to overcome prior to their transcendence. In Transformers, the characters are completely static and boring but they do literally transform… Maybe that’s not a good example…
My point is that stories of transformation are embedded deeply into the human psyche. There is ancient wisdom that tells us transformation is something uniquely human. Our ability to learn and transcend is a gift from God. I believe God created us in his own image and one aspect of what that means is our ability to learn, create, and engage in transformation with things around us and within us.
In the Genesis creation story, we’re told the earth was formless and void and the spirit of God floated above the face of the mysterious deep formless waters. The Hebrew words that are translated to “formless and void” are tohu wa-bohu which can also mean “waste” or something which isn’t productive. I think it’s an example of Chaos. And then God took all that wasted energy, the formless chaos, all that nothingness and He created life itself. Transforming death into new life. This first act of creation, taking chaos and turning it into existence as we know it is incredible. But then God goes further. He creates humanity in his own image. There is some way we are like God. And then he tells us to subdue the earth. Which may mean a lot of things, but I think it means that we’re to partner with God to bring order to chaos we see around us.
Of course, we know that was not where the story ended. The fall of man came through a serpent and an apple. Now, apart of all of our nature is sin and death and chaos in our own being. We all know our own capacity for darkness.
This has all sorts of implications for our daily lives, which we will continue to discuss, but for today, I’ll say this:
The world is constantly falling apart around you. Your health, your job, even your relationships are all subject to decay and entropy. The 2nd law of thermodynamics says that entropy in a system can only go up! If you don’t believe me, stop cleaning your house for a week. See what happens. It‘s just everywhere. And it gets worse, not only do things naturally decay, individual people have a unique ability to either accelerate or push back this process!
Your job, your purpose, day to day, is to push back against the Chaos. You have a divine spark, (kind of like the Transformers All Spark…) which can take disorder and creatively, effectively take on the chaos and turn it into something good and beautiful.
The task is difficult. It may, in fact, be impossible. Our good intentions fail us. Our fallen hearts betray our better intentions, but there is Good News. You are not alone. God has made a provision for you personally.
Through Jesus and his defeat of sin, you can push back the entropy and the atrophy of your own heart. And once that is done, through Him you can move forward in the world in victory: You can transform into the person you are supposed to be. You can be more loving than you thought you could be. You can be more kind. You can use your gifts and talents to successfully push back the chaos in your life. You can pull someone else from the dark, formless void.
Jesus said in Matthew 6:33, “Seek first the Kingdom of God and all these things will be added to you.” I think in part this is what He was talking about. Jordan Peterson would phrase it this way, “Keep your eyes heavenward. Then once your properly oriented you can then push back the chaos.”
I believe and trust that ultimately, it is God who will finally defeat sin and death and evil in the world. But I think he wants to do it in a way that surprises us. He wants to do it in individual hearts first. The kingdom of heaven begins where God is king. Give God your heart. Trust in Jesus and he will transform you heart. Then you can move forward with confidence knowing the world is falling apart, but you are empowered to do something about it. Start with the little things and work outward.
Your hero’s journey will move in ways you don’t expect. You will need to transform and transcend who you currently are to meet the demands of your life. I pray you learn this sooner than I did on my own journey. But if you’re aimed at heaven, you can defeat your worst demons and move forward with success and victory.
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