“…the mind governed by the Spirit is life and peace.”
ROMANS 8:6

In the last year or so, my family reached a milestone: every member of the Maguire household can tie their own shoes. My youngest, not wanting to expend any unnecessary energy (as if there’s a shortage in his life) or waste any time, will often ask for help in this effort. However, he can do it. And, the more he does do it, the better he’ll get at it.

What is peculiar about this shoe-tying phenomenon, however, is that every member of my family does it differently. The result is roughly the same. But, the way each one of us gets to that end is different. That being said, if shoe-tying is evaluated on the ability of the laces to remain tied over time, each of us get different grades. The boys seem to suffer with the least success in knot-longevity.

In recognizing this reality, and feeling insecure about something that should have been mastered a long time ago, I attempted to learn a new way to tie my shoes. At 6 years old, learning a new way to tie shoes is simply just learning. At 39, however, this is a monumental effort to overcome countlessly repeated “rabbit around the tree and through the hole” moments over the past decades. This repetition has been cemented to become the way I do it. After about 5 attempts at a new method, I gave up. My way is my way. I’d rather re-tie my shoes than learn a new way. Too hard. I’m not interested.

This, I think, is how many of us have come to understand our own lives and the challenge that comes in any transformation journey. We can recognize that there may be a better way, a new way, a way that may make more sense, but there is a comfort in our way. No matter the cost, we have a natural gravity toward our present way of being. That gravity is hewn into a pathway within our minds, grooved into our subconscious until it becomes part of us. To even consider an alternative means, at least marginally, a re-wiring of who we are. So, we equally long for and fear transformation… even if we know we need it.

This Sunday as we continue in our TRANSFORmeD series, we’ll talk about transformation and where the early evidence of God’s supernatural work to change us is found — in our minds. Bring anyone who’s ever been stuck in “a way” and can’t seem to find a way out.

See you soon,

Jeff

P.S. For those of you longing for a solution to your poorly tied shoes, here’s a three-minute TED talk from a few years back.