Page 18 - WOTS 59

Yourself

Are you planning to look for the
‘new you’ this year at college?

You may want to read this first.

Fall classes have begun. It’s a new year, a fresh start, and a good time to reinvent
yourself. Some of us might be away from our parents for the first time. Some of us
might be returning back to school, determined not to make the same bad run of
decisions as last year. Maybe some of us are just happy to be away from the parents
and want to strike out on our own. Whatever the case, college is often seen as the
prime time to reinvent ourselves and experiment with the possibilities.

If you’re approaching this year thinking, “I want to start over and reinvent myself,”
chances are you’re looking for a good place to begin. You could Google it, and you
would probably come up with various wikis, life-hacker articles, and blogs telling you
they have the secrets (as long as you buy their book).
REINVENTING

Before starting out on the quest to become the “new you”, maybe it would be a good
idea to first hash out what’s wrong to begin with. Why do we constantly want a
reinvented life? Is there something wrong with us that needs changing? Are we sick of
the person we have become? Are we sick of the bad choices we inevitably make over
and over?

Taking a look at who we are can help us understand why we want to change. After all,
anyone who desires to change is clearly not satisfied with what’s there. This desire to
change hints at the fact that we know something is wrong — something deeper than
our character flaws.

If who we are is summed up by where we go to school, our talents, our likes and
dislikes, our looks, or our personality, then change is purely a matter of behavioral
modification. This can lead to a long list of New Year’s resolutions that fall flat by mid-
February. We try to reinvent ourselves into who we want to be (skinnier, smarter,
happier, more assertive), but we end up disappointing ourselves because there are
deeper issues in our heart that keep creeping up and ruining our reinvention.

Perhaps it’s time to consider that, as self-sufficient as our culture has hammered us into
thinking we are, the power to change is not found within because we are helpless
sinners. Instead, powerful change has to come from an outside source that doesn’t have
a tainted heart. The Bible says that only God is pure and He can bring lasting change
into our lives. If we are willing to consider this option, we need to know what God has
to say about it.
According to the Bible, there are two important things to know about who we are:
SToP 1. We are created in the image of God.

“So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male
and female he created them.” —Genesis 1:27

2. We have sinned against Him. As a result, the world has been thrown into chaos. This

18 is ultimately why our lives are so painful, why there is so much suffering and darkness.