Reinvent yourself

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Last week I spoke about a new perspective on our trials we can gain from a new perspective on a familiar scriptural phrase.  It amazes me that such profound wisdom could be hidden in such plain sight.  Yet if we fail to see what’s in plain sight, it’s not because it’s hiding.

Knowing our trials are never here to stay breathes confidence that our future can be better than our past.  That confidence can provide the foundation we need to make changes in our lives.  And changing our lives always means changing ourselves.

If we want our lives to improve, then we must improve.  It’s natural law, and there’s no way around natural law.  When it comes to improving ourselves, the most effective improvements we can make always occur in our thinking.

A lot of people, LDS singles included, talk about thinking positive.  But many who talk the talk don’t walk the walk.  They don’t really believe inside themselves the positivity they preach.  And it shows in the way they carry themselves, how they interact with others, and their verbal expressions about the future.

But it doesn’t have to be that way.  We all have the ability to reformat and reboot ourselves.  We can always reinvent ourselves.

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Faith precedes the miracle

Experiencing a transformation from a pessimist bathed in despair and hopelessness to an optimist awash with confidence and hope is truly a miracle.  But we must first believe before we receive.

Whatever our problems, we will never find solutions with the same type of thinking that created our problems.  We must think on a higher level if we are to find solutions. And by definition, thinking on a higher level means changing our way of thinking.

Why do some adopt true belief while others adopt only a semblance of belief?  Anyone can say the words comprising positive phrases, but it takes something more to believe deep down that those phrases represent truth for you and your life. God could do such wonderful miracles in all of our lives if only we truly believed.

And that’s the change we need most of all, a change within ourselves about how we think about ourselves and our world.  Truly faith is power because true faith transforms us with the power to meet whatever challenge life brings us with both the confidence that God will support us and an optimism that better days are always in store for us.

But those who don’t believe don’t receive.  They are left to the consequences of their choice of disbelief.  Belief always has been a choice, and it always will be.  Once we choose to let go of our “need” to understand how it all works, to see the end from the beginning, and just trust that God will provide the way forward, we open our hearts to the faith needed to produce miracles in our lives.  Only after we open our hearts to faith can we open our eyes to see the miracles we want in our lives unfold.  Faith precedes the miracle.

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You can create a new you

Experiencing the miracle of transforming the way we think allows us to experience the miracle of transforming our lives.  We can reinvent ourselves into someone capable of doing what before we could not do.  That’s because the only limitations we have are often the ones we place upon ourselves with the way we think.  When we change the way we think, we free ourselves to be what we need to be to live the life we want to live.

The greatest miracle of all — the Atonement of Jesus Christ — can change us into better men and women.  Inherent with feeling God’s love is a realization that we are worth loving.  When we honor that realization by loving ourselves, we allow the power of the Atonement to work within us and transform us into something more than we were before.

In essence, we reinvent ourselves.

Knowing our true worth allows us to know our true potential.  And knowing our true potential is the first step towards achieving it.  What is that potential?  We all know the Sunday School answer; our true potential is to become like our Heavenly Father.  But have you ever stopped to think about what that actually means?

It means that we can do what He does because we are as He is.  What does God do?  He creates.  Understanding our potential as children of the Ultimate Creator provides a glimpse of ourselves as creators.  We begin to believe we can reinvent ourselves.

Change the way you think about yourself.  Reformat and reboot yourself.  As a child of God, you can create a new you.  You can become more than what you have been.  You can reinvent yourself.

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