This past week in Shoal Creek's student ministries we asked the question, "How should a role model help me become the person I need to become?" We tried to answer that question by suggesting that a truly transformational role model will help you become who you need to become in three ways.
1. A transformational role model will invite us into their life. Meaning, they give you access to see who they really are and what they're really all about. They don't show off their strengths only to withhold their weaknesses. By inviting you into their life, what they're really doing is earning your trust. Trust is the relational currency we exchange with someone, and by which we give someone permission to be influential in the shaping of our life. When a role model invites us into their world, and when we enter and determine whether or not their world is something that's attractive to us or not, we in return give them access into the shaping process of our world.
2. A transformational role model will challenge our weaknesses. Just like a chain, we truly are only as strong as our weakest link. We have a tendency to want to only make our strengths stronger in life, and the downfall of that is that it can lead to our weaknesses becoming even more of a fatal error in our lives. Transformational role models will not just pat us on the back and give us hi five's for jobs well done. They'll see the weak spots in our lives and not be satisfied to just ignore them, because they know our weaknesses are keeping us from the lives we can achieve. A good role model will create conflict in our lives, even if we don't want them to, because the best version of ourself is worth fighting for.
3. A transformational role model will see Jesus as their ultimate role model, and will help us understand how to make Jesus our own ultimate role model. We seek out and allow role models to make an impact in our lives mainly because we are aware of our own deficiencies and short comings. As we mature, we become increasingly aware that we are not the finished product of who we want to be. We also come into increased contact with the brokenness of the world, and this increased awareness of brokenness in ourselves and the world lines up a seemingly never ending set of problems that block our way forward. What a truly life-changing and transformational role model will do is help us understand every problem is at its root a spiritual problem. Every obstacle we face, every brokenness we come in contact with, is really spiritual in nature. There isn't a single problem you or I face that doesn't have spiritual implications in our lives. Therefore, what the role model can help us see is that since every problem is really a spiritual problem, only a spiritual answer will do. They will lead us to then see Jesus, his life and his teachings, as the ultimate answer to the problems we face. They can share with us their understanding of what a relationship with Jesus is like, and be a voice to guide us in pursuing our own relationship with Jesus.
If you're someone looking for a role model of this description, then please come by Shoal Creek! We'd love to connect you with someone who will help you understand who Jesus is for you!
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