New Eyes and Old Trucks

Continuing with the question of conversion...What is it? Does it matter? Does it mean anything at all in a post-modern world?

Among the powerful insights I've had from many folks, I want to highlight two today. My friend Annette posted a response not long ago describing conversion as seeing with new eyes. We receive new sight with which to see our possessions, our status, our looks, our image, our success, etc. The new sight God gives us enables us to realize that these things will not provide the good life as we think they will, nor will they enable us to escape the pains of existence. Through our new eyes we see that only Jesus provides the peace that passes all understanding and the power to live as God designed us to live. That's a good image for conversion - seeing the same people and things, a new way.

Through a recent e-mail, my friend Dan notes that "conversion" is a word frequently associated with vehicles. In the 1970's and 1980's we heard a lot about "conversion vans." Dan talks about a currently popular reality show - "Trick my Truck." Old, beat-up, headed for the junkyard pick-up trucks are turned into customized dream vehicles. Dan says, "In that context, a conversion in Christianity is when a person, whose life is beat up and just can't seem to go on, gives their body, mind, and soul back to the one who created them in the first place and says, 'Okay, I've done all I can do to make this life what I thought it should be. I give up. You take it and trick it out LIKE YOU WANT IT.'" That speaks volumes about what it means to be converted as well.

What are your thoughts on these spins on conversion? Dan has some further words on conversion as a total process, but I'll save those for a later post. I'm getting pretty excited about the learning experience here in May on this subject. I invite your prayers, as our main aim is to enable someone to meet Jesus through this. I'll see you around the next bend in the river.

(P.S. My prayers today are with two groups of people - persons who are addicted to their work, and persons for whom food is their drug of choice. These are not areas in which "just say no," is workable, but many people deaden some pain or emptiness in their lives with too many hours at the grindstone or keyboard, and too much intake, when physical hunger has already been satisfied. I want to find good, Christ-centered referrals for help in these areas - books, Internet resources, groups, etc. If any of you have any leads, let me know.)