We . . . are being transformed into his likeness.
—2 Corinthians 3:18
My father was a master wood carver. When I view pieces of his elegant craftsmanship on my apartment shelves, I am reminded of his technique. He described it as choosing an appropriate block of wood, placing a picture of what he wanted to produce in front of him, and then going to work—as he explained it, “cutting off everything from that block of wood that doesn’t look like the picture.”
If you want to look like Christ, that’s a good strategy: keep a picture of Jesus in your mind, and cut off everything in your life that doesn’t look like him. Let the Lord shave, shape, and sand, as “[You] are transfigured in ever-increasing splendor into his own image” (2 Cor 3:18).
You yield. He transforms.