I’ve got something on the inside, working on the outside. 

Oh, what a change in my life!

I’ve got something on the inside, working on the outside. 

Oh, what a change in my life!

 

 

My convictions regarding race and its social power/lessness are grounded in my life and relationship with Jesus Christ.  It is because I believe that God is eternal that I am confident that our belief in and dependence on race for meaning can end in my lifetime.  It is because I believe God to be omnipresent that I do not see race as a know- it- all.  It is because I believe that God is omnipresent that I am unable to see race at work in all instances and incidents.  The God that I serve shares this ability with no one in creation and with nothing that we have created. 

My desire to live a race-less life is evidence that there is something on the inside at work on the outside that wants to change my life.  Race is an external problem that has an internal solution.  Freedom, as with this life, is not just physical but spiritual.  This is why a signed sheet of paper, gaining a majority of votes, the creation of laws and the adding of amendments have not been able to make many Americans free.  There is at work within us a spiritual reality that we can choose to participate in or not.  And with it, are actions that we can take or not, goals that we can meet or not, a life that we can live or not.  Paul described it as two natures, two lives or manners of existing, the old and the new man. Whatever your nomenclature, we are not to live divided as the new should inform the old and a change, a conversion, a tranformation, an exchange should occur.  The Truth that lives on the inside of us should begin to work on the lies on the outside of us.  And race is not excluded.

It is a beautiful lie, attractive because of its power and charisma.  But, that’s how it looks on the outside.  Our battered souls, bruised hearts and broken relationships are proof of its seemingly unending destruction on the inside of us.  What is race doing on the inside of you and how is it affecting your life on the outside?