When You've Outgrown an Old Version of Yourself

Shannon Jacobs had spent most of her life chasing the

feeling that she had finally made it. She was driven, and she

poured herself into academics and social standing, always

wanting to be recognized. And no matter how much she accomplished,

there was something underneath all of it that wouldn't go away.

An emptiness she kept trying to outrun. In her second year of

college, she met a friend named David. He was kind, patient, and

had a steadiness about him. She just couldn't explain. He didn't

seem rattled when things went wrong, and she just assumed it

was his personality. But the more she got to know him, the

more she realized it wasn't personality. It was something

else. It was faith. She started asking questions and started

attending church. And one evening, after a sermon that

named the emptiness she'd never been able to explain, She prayed

for the first time, and actually meant it. She told God she

didn't fully understand any of this. She admitted her doubts,

and something shifted inside of her. She trusted Christ.

about to change. We'll come back to what happened next. But

first, welcome to Daily Devotions for Busy Lives. I'm

Bart Leger. If you've been following Christ for any length

of time, there's a good chance you've felt this also. You're

not the same person you used to be, and the life you've been

living doesn't quite fit anymore. Old habits are losing their grip.

Some relationships feel strained in ways you can't fully explain.

doesn't match the version everyone else around you has

known. And that in-between place is uncomfortable. Now, this

doesn't mean anything's wrong, as a matter of fact. It means

the Holy Spirit is doing His job of creating Christ-likeness in

you. Here's what Paul says in Romans 12, verse 2. Don't copy

the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you

into a new person by changing the way you think.

will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect. The word

Paul used for transform is the Greek word metamorpho. It's

where we get the word metamorphosis. That's not a

quick process. It's a complete restructuring from the inside

out, and it takes time, like in the stages of a butterfly. And

Paul frames it as ongoing. Let God transform you. Present tense.

Something that's still happening. Not something that happened once

at conversion and then finished. That matters because a lot of us

expect the Christian life to feel settled once we've been at

it for a while. We expect the discomfort to be a beginner's

experience. But Paul is writing to people who are already

believers, already in church, and he's telling them the

transformation is still underway. The renewing of your mind is a

process, and the in-between is part of it. I remember a quote

from years ago. It went something like this. Please be

patient. God isn't finished with me yet. Can you relate? senior

year of high school, I had my life mapped out. Engineering. I

liked the clarity of it, the order, and the fact that had

solutions you could calculate. Then, God started nudging me

toward ministry. It wasn't like it was the booming voice of God

telling me what He wanted me to do. It was more subtle, and it

was persistent. And for a while, I was caught between what I had

planned and what He was directing me toward. I liked

things orderly and well-planned, and that season was neither. It

was unsettling, in a way I didn't have language for at the

time. And looking back, I can see that the unsettling was the

point. God was changing the way I thought about my own future,

and that kind of change doesn't feel comfortable while it's

happening. And that's true for most people going through

genuine spiritual transformation. The new person God is building

doesn't arrive fully formed. You grow into it. And the growing

includes seasons where the old version of you is losing its

grip, but the new one isn't fully in place yet. Some of the

strain you feel in relationships during this process is normal.

When you're changing and the people around you aren't,

there's friction. You're not the same person they signed up to

know. And that can be confusing for them, and it's lonely for

Hopefully, those relationships can weather the change. If so,

you can become a godly influence in their lives. And Paul's

instruction is pretty specific. He says, Don't copy the behavior

and customs of this world. The word he used for copy, right

there, means pressed into a mold. The has a shape it wants to

press you into, and it works on you constantly through what you

consume and what you chase and what you measure your worth by.

The renewing of your mind is the counter-pressure. That's God

reshaping you from the inside. And the two pressures working

against each other is exactly what the in-between feels like.

The good news in Romans 12.2 is in the second half of the verse.

Then you will learn God's will for you, which is good, pleasing,

and perfect. That transformation leads somewhere. The

disorientation isn't the destination. And God is patient

with the process, and you can be too. Now, let's get back to

Shannon. The change didn't look the way Shannon expected. It

wasn't dramatic. It was gradual. And during that in-between time,

her priorities began to be reordered. She started seeing

people as people, where before she had seen them as competition.

The drive to be recognized started to loosen its grip, and

she became more patient and more willing to serve. And her

closest friends noticed, before she could even put it into words.

She later wrote that one of the most unexpected things about

following Christ was realizing that the self she had spent

years building had to give way to something she hadn't chosen

for herself. And that was disorienting. But it was also,

she said, the most freeing thing she had ever experienced.

She found something that didn't require her to perform to

receive it. That's what the renewed mind produces over time.

Someone who is no longer driven by what used to drive them. And

the emptiness Shannon had spent years trying to outrun was

finally gone. Her circumstances hadn't changed, but she had.

Here's today's challenge. Name one thing God has been changing

in the way you think. Maybe it's how you measure your worth, or

what you reach for when life gets uncertain. Thank God for

what He's doing in your life, even in the in-between, if it's

been unsettling. The discomfort means the work's underway.

That's worth being grateful for. Lord, thank you that you don't

leave us the way you found us. Thank you for the transformation

that's still happening, even in the places where it feels

unsettled. Give us patience with the process, and help us to

trust that the disorientation of becoming someone new is not

something going wrong. It's you doing exactly what you promised.

In Jesus' name, amen. If this episode encouraged you today,

would you share it with someone who might need to hear it? Just

go to dailydevotionsforbusylives.com

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for joining me on Daily Devotions for Busy Lives.

Remember, the renewing of your mind is a process, and God is

patient with every stage of it. Come back next time for more

encouragement to help you live grounded in God's truth. Until

then, God bless, and have a great day.