When my sons were little tykes, they loved playing with transformers, a type of robot toy. The transformer could be a car, then when you wanted it to be a robot, you could transform it by moving a few parts around. It was an amazing toy that captured their attention and their imaginations.

Well Formed Mind

Although not instantaneously, we too have the capacity to transform ourselves. With practice, we can choose to renew our minds. We can renovate those noxious thoughts we have about ourselves, others, or a situation, developing them into good, pleasant and grown-up notions. But how do we transform our thinking and why would we want to? 

When I arrive at certain junctures in my life, I take the time to pause and consider if what I am doing and what I am thinking is good for me. Taking these personal interludes to appraise myself is a helpful habit, a lifelong spiritual discipline that began right after God rescued me from ending my life. 

Though I did not know it, the moment God showed up and I chose to accept his invitation to live instead, I became someone brand new. Forty years later, I’m still getting to know just how transformational that particular juncture was for me. 

Believing God is a lifelong journey of being transformed. Being transformed happens as we renew our minds with Biblical truths. 

Every time I wonder, “What should I think about this?” God actually answers me. Although I agree with God’s answer, it takes much practice to integrate that answer into my life. 

For instance, for the longest time, I knew that my bitter, angry, resentful and blame filled thoughts were ruinous to myself and my family. But as often as I told myself that I should not feel this way, I still felt that way. 

How could I repair this thinking? 

Allowing myself to listen and follow God’s leading, I went away, sequestering myself at a monastery as often as possible. In the silence I heard one word; forgive. And that one word renewed my thinking, not instantaneously, but with practice. 

 My father’s suicide and my mother’s inability to truthfully tell me of his suicide allowed anger, bitterness, resentment and blame to make their home inside of me. But, forgiving my parents evicted such thoughts and replaced them with, “They did the best they could with what they knew.” And I knew I could no longer blame them for not being perfect parents. 

Forgiving them did not erase the past, but forgiving them repaired my thinking about the past. 

Why bother to be transformed? When we transform our minds by renewing them we grow into well formed, mature and healthy people.