Places of Transformation

I was recently asked what I felt like God was teaching me in this season and the word “transformation” popped into my head. It is a word that has been coming up a lot as of late and I traced it back to when I rewatched Frozen II one of the first days of quarantine. It was the little monologue that Olaf had about the Enchanted forest being a place of transformation that had been dancing around in my head. I looked up the quote and found this snippet from the co-director, “Olaf reminded us enchanted forests are places of transformation, they’re a metaphor for life, and change comes for you whether you like it or not. And sometimes all you have is yourself”.

Change really came for us, didn’t it? We may have not been prepared for it, but the really good news is, we have more than just ourselves. Although we have gone into isolation and some of us may be living alone and it may look a little different, we still have our community and we still have God. In the weeks leading up to spring break I believe that the Holy Spirit was really moving in our Wesley body. I could feel it in the room on Wednesday nights, in the people I talked to during the week, in testimonies I heard and although that seems so far away now, I believe that God was just preparing us and filling us for this season. He was releasing an abundance of His Spirit in us for a time where we can no longer gather together and worship, for a time where church services have to be live-streamed, and where we feel like we have a total lack of control in the future. I think God did an enormous work in us because He wants us to carry Him along in this season. He wanted us to know His nearness, see His beauty, and feel His majesty then so that when we doubt His goodness now, we fall back on what we know to be true because we have encountered the living God.

I don’t think that God moved powerfully in our lives just so that we could stay stagnant along with the rest of the world. God is working in us. Romans 12:2 says, “Stop imitating the ideals and opinions of the culture around you, but be inwardly transformed by the Holy Spirit through a total reformation of how you think. This will empower you to discern God’s will as you live a beautiful life, satisfying and perfect in his eyes” (TPT). The way I see it, is that we are being inwardly transformed and being in tune with what God is doing, there will be a “total reformation of how you think”. We will be training ourselves to see the things the way God sees them and learning more of who He is and who we are in Him. Our conscience will be formed in line with the Holy Spirit and we will be empowered to discern God’s will.
 
As Paul challenged the Romans, I challenge you to “rejoice in hope, be patient in suffering, persevere in prayer” - Romans 12:12, NRSV.

Author | Natalie Mata