After relocating to the other side of America, a close friend of mine quickly learned that CHAMELEONS were everywhere! He was mesmerized by their ability to change colors based on their environment—from sunbathing on a dark wooden fence to lying in wait for dinner under a soft bed of green ferns.
Google taught him that their skin does not change colors. Their camouflaging trick is the result of chemical changes occurring under their skin which toggles between opaque and transparent. The change going on inside allows them to slip into a new outfit showing on the outside.
After seeing hundreds of chameleons in the first month on his new turf, two things crashed into his consciousness at once: 1) He was looking for his own “CULTURAL CAMO” to help him be accepted in his new home; and 2) His (and our) identity in Christ must never be based on blending in like a chameleon.
I took a powerful message out of that story.
It is a trap to allow our clothes and hair; attitude and thinking; and jobs and cars to be who and what we present to the world.
Doing that has us adopting one vocabulary for work, another for after-church coffee. Humor that is delivered in different shades of color depending on the audience.
Tongues that are gentle one day and nasty the next.
Country roads that produce awe over God’s magnificence and rush-hour traffic that prompts us to lean on our horn and communicate with our hands.
God did not design us with transparent skin. But he does wants us to follow him and live life with transparent hearts that radiate his love to and for the world.
I ask God to help me be transparent with the world so the people in it see HIM.
WHAT ABOUT YOU?
Are you wearing any CHRISTIAN CAMO?
“Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who does not need to be ashamed and who correctly handles the word of truth.” 2 Timothy 2:15
