My wife interjected, “You don’t need to pull on your eye.” Apparently, I do. Like the swallow must return to Capistrano, the salmon must struggle up stream to spawn and die, I must cradle my head and tug on my eye.
We have lived hundreds of miles from my family for our entire married life, so we see them usually about once a year. Early in our marriage, my wife had been silently puzzling over this unusual quirk of mine until, at a family gathering, she noticed my oldest brother doing the same thing. Then she looked over at my mother and noticed she was tugging on her eye too. My wife observed that none of my other siblings tugged on their eyes. Honestly, it was only when my wife reported her observation that I learned that I had the quirk. I did it unconsciously. I have found my new life in Christ to be much the same.
The gospel promises those who, through faith alone in Christ alone, are born again, is an internal transformation. The Spirit of God changes the mindset of the believer ever more to be like Christ’s mindset. Change in thinking usually results in a change of behavior. The new things I now do, I do because, in my mind, they are agreeable and pleasing. Many old actions no longer seem agreeable or pleasing.
I first noticed this inner change a few weeks after my conversion. My coworkers and I were out for our usual TGIF, after-work drink, but this time, I felt a new discomfort and didn’t want to be there. For the record, I am not one who believes that God forbids drinking alcohol; he does forbid drunkenness. But in that moment, weeks into my new life in Christ, it suddenly seemed not beneficial for me. I had not heard a sermon on it. No brother in Christ had chided me. In my heart, I knew it was not for me.
The rest of my life has been much the same, a Spirit-changed mind bringing a change of lifestyle. This has encouraged me greatly because assures me that I am in Christ.
I have a question for my family next time we gather: who in the next generation is keeping the eye-tugging quirk alive?
