My Parent Lives in Me

As I’ve gotten older I’ve noticed more and more of my parents’ traits coming out of me.  For example, I’ve been told I’m quite a taskmaster toward myself, that I’m ultra-responsible, and that I seem to go to any lengths to stand by my word.  In all of those things, I see my parents.  It’s now become my voice rather than theirs telling me “a day’s work for a day’s pay,” “if it’s worth doing it’s worth doing right,” “you’re only as good as your word.”  And behind all of that is the question my parents often posed to me, “What if everyone did it, would it be a better world?”  In those formative years, when my parents were raising me, coaching me, forming me, I heard their words, but I never dreamed they were becoming so entrenched in my own thinking, my own worldview, my own way of treating myself.  But taking a moment for a bit of introspection I see it clearly, my parent lives in me.

Thinking about issues of character in that way has helped me appreciate the ways God is at work in my life and yours.  When Jesus told Nicodemus (John 3:3) that he (we) must be born again, it’s getting at establishing a new “parent” in us.  When Paul talks about the fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22-23), he’s describing our new Parent’s character traits becoming more naturally part of who we are.  Through the scriptures, worship, Christian fellowship, prayer, God sets about raising, coaching, and forming His children.  As time goes by God’s words become more entrenched in our own thinking and our own worldview.  It’s not brainwashing.  It’s spiritual heredity.

As I marvel at that process taking place in the life of any individual I can’t help but ask the question often posed to me, “What if everyone did it, would it be a better world?”  I think that’s the plan, actually.

Word Replace

You know how they say we should think before we speak?  (Did they think before they said that?)  Sounds like good advice.  I think some of us do more thinking-before-speaking than others of us.  For some of us, it seems to be a pretty short route from initial thought to mouth with not much contemplation along the way.  For others of us there are several moments of crafting and editing that take place within us before the perfect statement comes forth to bless the world.  How does all that work for you?

Perhaps we could think of it this way; it’s like we have an internal word processor.  Maybe we don’t use it much to change fonts in our thoughts, but we use it to assemble our thoughts, cut-and-paste, delete, bold, and other similar functions.  Here’s one function it would be helpful to put in place in our internal word processor: word replace.  As you roll a thought around in your mind, if it begins with the phrase, “I know” and also contains the word “but”, try replacing that word with the word “so.”  The intended outcome would be that instead of us saying to ourselves or others, “I know… but…” we would say, “I know… so…”.

What gets us into predicaments so often is when we acknowledge we know the right thing, the most helpful thing, to do in a situation, but we consciously choose to do something other than the most helpful thing.  Hence, “I know… but…”  What I’m suggesting is that we listen to ourselves say the truth we know and then choose to follow through accordingly (“so…”).  If an example would be helpful, instead of saying, “I know I shouldn’t interfere in his business, but I think I will anyway” we would do the internal word replace to make it come out, “I know I shouldn’t interfere in his business, so I won’t.”

Stuff about internal word processors is not exactly in the Bible, but all of this goes along well with the wisdom of many of the Proverbs in the Old Testament and with a statement from that little book of wisdom in the New Testament, James, “Anyone, then, who knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, commits sin” (James 4:17).  Just something to think, and perhaps speak, about.