All Things TogetherSample

Day 2

ON FORMATION

A child is fully human from the start, yet they are grow­ing into their true humanity, degree by degree, heading to­ward their pregnant potential. Their very being is a becoming. Their faculties, their facets of soul, their potential and destiny are all being integrated through inhabiting time. It is a now and not yet kind of thing. And so it is with apprenticeship to Jesus.

As apprentices to Jesus, we are those born anew, with a line of crimson and gold life dawning in our dark hearts. We are human beings becoming something wonderful as we are being conformed to the image of Jesus. Day has come and is coming. We are a now and not yet people.

In other words, human beings have an ontological potential—we are to become who we truly are. That is not a typo; it is a hopeful truth.

Take heart. We can change.

The frayed pieces of our being can meet and weave. We are those who, like a seed, are latent with life, with a forest of flourishing all coiled up within something small and unassuming. And who we truly are has everything to do with our origin, our essence, and our aim.

These things are the jurisdiction of the Creator. We are each bestowed with a what, a why, and a how. And the how is Jesus and a life of apprenticeship to Him. He is the Way.

We don’t get to make up our own way to be human. As the psalmist wrote:

Teach me your way, O Lord,

that I may walk in your truth;

unite my heart to fear your name. (86:11, ESV)

This means that the good news of our creatureliness is that we are free of the burden of having to be our own god. Take that in for a moment with a sigh of relief.

As the apostle Paul penned, “Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom” (2 Corinthians 3:17, ESV). And it is through the empowering presence of the Spirit that we can become like Jesus and know flourishing.

What is the “latent life” you sense God is cultivating in you right now?