Potty Training

The other day I was reading in the book A Better Way: A Case for Love. God always directs my reading and below is an excerpt from this book as he is discussing the process of being transformed by the renewing of our minds:

"...recently my wife and I potty trained our son. Now, we could not have done this if the ability was not already inherent within him to do so. He had the innate ability to put his waste in the toilet, but his experience up until that point had been different. Because of this contrast between his experience and his ability, there was resistance in the potty training. He had accidents. We got frustrated. Our frustration was not that he missed the mark as much as that he was able to do something but wasn't confident in that ability. To be clear, the only real change that had to occur in him was a different way of thinking. Instead of being immature and putting it in his diaper for someone else to clean up, he had to be responsible for his own bodily functions.

Fortunately, our son eventually developed confidence in this ability and operates fairly easily within it now.

For believers, this is much the same. We have been given the mind of Christ. We have the innate ability to think like Jesus. But because we've lived much of our lives thinking apart from God and the Holy Spirit, this takes a radical change and training to just cooperate with the mind that God had placed within you.

There will be great resistance in the flesh. There will be accidents. Some struggles take years of discipline to correct in our thinking. God, in His mercy, gives us great tribulations as opportunities to reveal the divine nature that already exists within us. These tribulations produce perseverance, and perseverance produces character. What kind of character? The character of God. And as our character is renewed to mirror our Heavenly Father, we increase in hope of eternal and spiritual things."

I think that this year is a lot about being okay with the mess of potty training. It's okay to have accidents as they are part of the process of transforming my mind to think like Christ. 

I don't really have a ton to add. Do you ever read things and think, "Yes! That's what I've been thinking about and they said it so well!" or "Yes! This author is echoing my thoughts. I might be on the right track." That's what this was. Not only that, but just the day before I had been talking to a Little about this very thing. I shared with her this passage since it even refers to the verse that I had referred to in our discussion about why tribulations are in life--a popular topic around her.