Building your perfect mentor (Blurb)

 

Growing up, I was confused about what it was to 'have it all together' or just in short term how to 'be cool'.  I had a pretty good idea of what I liked and what I did not like - I thought that I could easily figure out how to mold myself into a respectable person.

As I aged I met people after people after people - and as I met them I would ask myself what about these people I liked and did not like.

I was creating my perfect mentor.  There were plenty of people that I met that I saw as completely and totally awesome, until I learned that one bad thing about them that blew me away.  I would then have to revalue all that I thought of them and what parts of them were good to keep - and what parts needed to be tossed.

Basically I had my monster, created much like Dr. Frankenstein, that was what I thought of as the perfect person.  The truth is that if I met you - there was a part of you in there.

Movies and books made it even more interesting. 

 I just needed a Sean Connery (Indiana Jones, Highlander, Finding Forrester),  Yoda, Morpheus, Doctor Who, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Charles Xavier, Mr. Miyagi, Gandalf, Zaknafein, Mr. Feeny, Miss Frizzle, or maybe even Ms. Honey to have a perfect future set for me.  As long as this list already is - I could certainly make it longer, with additional fiction and real 'fiction' mentors.

Not until I turned 16 would this BEGIN to change!  I have to say begin because I still do this - I am GOOD AT IT.  I know what I like and what I do not like ... don't you?  I have to weaken myself in this in order to gain what Christ has for me:

2 Corinthians 12:10

Amplified Bible (AMP)

¹⁰So for the sake of Christ, I am well pleased and take pleasure in infirmities, insults, hardships, persecutions, perplexities and distresses; for when I am weak [in human strength], then am I [truly] strong (able, powerful in divine strength).

The crazy part is when your eyes are opened, the veil is moved, the curtain is torn ... Christ is center stage.  When this happened to me, I looked around my monster - my formed creation of perfect mentors, and began to realize that it was all trash!  All the good it could be, it could create would never beat out what Jesus shows with His life and with His death!

We were created in the image of God - that image was tainted ... much like looking into a fun house mirror, our images could be like God, but are only deformations of what they really could be.  Taking those images to create my mentors, I was creating an even worse image.  This was like taking that fun house mirror and reflecting it in another - the image cannot be pure, unless the mirror knows what to show and how to show it.  To do that it must be exactly the opposite of the mirror creating the deformities!

My mentors are awesome, but NOT as awesome as Christ or God - that image is reflected to me though the word of God - and that mirror shows me the truth of what I am - and what I can be!

I have choice to look at what I have done wrong - and give up, or instead to see that possible future and take the steps ahead to move toward that better place.  

i catch myself rebuilding a mentor time and time again - realizing I need to rip it down and look back into the word of God.  The longer I focus in this - the better I am able to move forward and do better things than I imagine - as I look away my attitude changes ... fails ... and hurts those around me.

What or who is your mentor? 

Are you as good as you can be? 

As good as you should be? 

You can be better - You can help guide others - You can mentor others to Christ...

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