"In some sense, we are all hypocrites in transition." ~Erwin McManus
I had started this entry a little while ago, but tucked it away as too many other things were bouncing through my head and life at the time, but some things have settled down and others I have settled into so it seems a good time to pick it up again. Also, how can one resist the following plea from the comments section of my last post?
*poke poke* Update please? *begs prettily*
I would bug this dear woman (and good friend!) about updating her own blog -- Random Thoughts, for which there is a link at the left -- but she has been doing just that again, soooo . . . I'm left with the option of updating my own or just shutting up. (By the way, if it has been eons the Random Thoughts blog went between updates, what category would mine fall into update-wise?)
But yes -- us, hypocrites and transition.
According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, a hypocrite is "a person who puts on a false appearance of virtue or religion" or "a person who acts in contradiction to his or her stated beliefs or feelings."
Ouch.
But wait a second here . . . look again at the second part of the definition. A hypocrite is someone acting in contradiction to his or her stated beliefs or feelings." (emphasis added)
Isn't that, in a sense or to a degree, what Christians must do on a regular basis?
Take my perception of myself, for example. I have spent a good chunk of my life battling with feelings of inadequacy and inferiority. Pretty near anyone who knows me could tell you I don't have the best self-image. It is better than what it has been, though. And do you want to know why? Because I'm finally starting to take act in a way which contradicts what I have believed and felt about myself. Regardless of my feelings of inadequacy and inferiority, the fact of the matter is even before the world was made, God loved *me* and chose *me* in Christ to be holy and without fault in His eyes (Ephesians 1:4, NLT).
Do I always believe this? No. Do I always feel this? No. I still have days where I have to fight to find something positive to say about what I did or about what happened to me. But part of changing my mindset involves changing how I act. Trying to get different results by doing the same thing over and over again is a good definition of insanity, after all.
So then that makes me a hypocrite of some sort, doesn't it?
But in cases such as this, it's something I can deal with and, more importantly, it's something I can allow God to work out in me. To follow the example of minister and author Joyce Meyer, "I'm not where I need to be, but thank God I am not where I used to be."
And that's okay.
