{"id":3604,"date":"2024-04-25T07:41:36","date_gmt":"2024-04-25T11:41:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/js1cd06kre.onrocket.site\/?p=3604"},"modified":"2024-04-25T07:41:36","modified_gmt":"2024-04-25T11:41:36","slug":"dressed-for-success","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/2024\/04\/25\/dressed-for-success\/","title":{"rendered":"Dressed for Success"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast,\u00a0<\/em>click here<\/a>

When you change your life, you change your clothes.\u00a0

That\u2019s not always literally true. But most of us have experienced life transitions that required us to adjust our wardrobe.

During more than 40 years of professional ministry, I went to the office wearing long-sleeved Oxford button-down shirts. My slacks were always clean, my shoes were always shined. Blue jeans were off-limits. I welcomed the occasional gift of a new necktie. For years on Sunday mornings I donned a black Geneva preaching robe, and wore different colorful stoles (purple, red, green, and white) that signified the changing seasons of the ecclesiastical calendar.

Four years ago I retired from active congregational leadership.\u00a0

Now I\u2019m a gentleman farmer, living on a small horse farm just outside Indianapolis. Instead of driving once a day to an air-conditioned, nicely appointed office, I walk three times a day (morning, afternoon, and mid-evening) about 150 feet from the back of our house to our barn. There I greet our outdoor cats, throw hay to the horses, refill their buckets with water, and dive into the special task of shoveling and transporting their manure. Four horses generate about 48 piles a day, so Mary Sue and I haven\u2019t yet said, \u201cYou know, let\u2019s just take today off.\u201d\u00a0

As you might guess, this new life calls for a change of costume.

I now put on blue jeans every morning. I\u2019ve traded in my dress shoes for calf-high Muck boots, which help me navigate snow, ice, mud, and, well, 48 piles of horse poop. I\u2019m holding on to a couple of my favorite neckties, but the rest are heading for Goodwill. I\u2019ve worn my old black robe just once during the past two years \u2013 when I pretended to be a judge as part of a skit during a weekend retreat.

When you change your life, you change your clothes. What used to hang in your closet will never suit you when you take on a new vocation.

That\u2019s what the apostle Paul says in Colossians chapter three. Here\u2019s how Eugene Peterson renders verses 9-11 in his paraphrase called The Message<\/em>:

\u201cDon\u2019t lie to one another. You\u2019re done with that old life. It\u2019s like a filthy set of ill-fitting clothes you\u2019ve stripped off and put in the fire. Now you\u2019re dressed in a new wardrobe. Every item of your new way of life is custom-made by the Creator, with his label on it. All the old fashions are now obsolete<\/em>.\u201d

Here\u2019s what comes next in verses 12-14:

\u201cSo, chosen by God for this new life of love, dress in the wardrobe God picked out for you: compassion, kindness, humility, quiet strength, discipline. Be even-tempered, content with second place, quick to forgive an offense. Forgive as quickly and completely as the Master forgave you. And regardless of what else you put on, wear love. It\u2019s your basic, all-purpose garment. Never be without it.\u201d<\/em>

Deciding to follow Jesus is not a matter of a few minor adjustments here and then. It requires a fundamental transformation of mind and heart.\u00a0

We leave behind a life that is essentially self-centered, one in which our morning focus has been something like, \u201cHow can I get through this day, and what can I do to turn things to my advantage?\u201d\u00a0

Now we greet the morning by asking, \u201cWhat can I do today to please God, and where might God be sending me to make a difference in someone else\u2019s life?\u201d

For Paul, that\u2019s going to require a whole new wardrobe. We abandon the \u201cclothes\u201d we used to wear \u2013 looking out for #1, telling lies, manipulating customers, plotting revenge, snickering at other people\u2019s weaknesses. Perhaps such behaviors used to seem like \u201ccommon sense.\u201d But we can\u2019t ever dress like that again. \u00a0

It\u2019s time to shop at a completely different store.\u00a0

In his book After You Believe<\/em>, pastor and theologian N.T. Wright points out that just because we surrender ourselves to Jesus doesn\u2019t mean this happens automatically:

\u201cClothes don\u2019t just fall out of the [closet] and put themselves on you. You have to think about what you\u2019re going to wear, making conscious and repeated decisions to put on the clothes appropriate for the new life you\u2019re going to follow.\u201d\u00a0

Referring to the new garments of the new spiritual life that Paul mentions in Colossians 3, Wright continues, \u201cYou have to decide<\/em> that you intend<\/em> to put them on. You have to get them out of the closet. You have to learn to put them on the right way, like someone learning how to do up a bow tie.\u201d\u00a0 \u00a0

Our never-ending call is to dress for success \u2013 the particular kind of \u201csuccess\u201d entailed by letting the life of Jesus increasingly shine through our daily lives.

God promises that he has given us everything we need to pull that off.\u00a0

And we can all be grateful that we\u2019ll never have to wear Muck boots for Jesus.
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast,\u00a0click here When you change your life, you change your clothes.\u00a0 That\u2019s not always literally true. But most of us have experienced life transitions that required us to adjust our wardrobe. During more than 40 years of professional ministry, I went to the office wearing long-sleeved Oxford button-down shirts. My slacks were always… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3605,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[139],"class_list":["post-3604","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-spiritual-growth"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3604","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3604"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3604\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3606,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3604\/revisions\/3606"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3605"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3604"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3604"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3604"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}