Living Changed

"Being changed is not about becoming someone else. It is about becoming the person Jesus is calling you to be."

When many people think about living for Christ, they naturally think about extraordinary moments. They imagine standing before large crowds, serving in visible ministry, accomplishing something important, or being remembered for the work they have done. God certainly calls some people into places where their faith can be seen by many, but the evidence of a changed life is often found much closer to home. It is found in the ordinary moments that most people never see, in the way we speak to our families, the decisions we make when nobody is watching, the way we respond when we are misunderstood, and the way we treat people who may never be able to give anything back to us.

Living changed means allowing Jesus Christ to influence every part of our lives. It means learning to forgive when resentment would feel easier, choosing honesty when compromise would be more convenient, and continuing to trust God when we do not understand what He is doing. These moments may seem ordinary, but they reveal whether the work Jesus has begun within us is continuing to shape the way we live.

Jesus never separated faith from everyday life. He did not teach His followers to honor God only during worship services or when they were surrounded by other believers. He taught them to love their neighbors, care for those who were hurting, forgive those who wronged them, and remain faithful whether anyone else noticed or not. His life demonstrated that following God reaches into every conversation, relationship, decision, and difficult moment.

For much of my life, I have known what it feels like to experience the world differently from the people around me. As an autistic person, I have sometimes processed situations differently, communicated differently, noticed things others did not notice, and struggled to understand why certain things seemed obvious to everyone else while they were difficult for me. There have been moments when I felt misunderstood simply because the way I experienced something was not the way someone else experienced it.

For a long time, I wondered whether being different meant something was wrong with me. I sometimes wished I could blend in, avoid being misunderstood, and become more like the people around me. But Jesus began teaching me something I needed to understand: my autism does not determine my worth, and being different does not mean that I am broken.

Jesus Did Not Call Me To Become Someone Else.

He Called Me To Become More Like Him.

I do not need Jesus to erase the way He created me in order to prove that He is working in my life. What I need is for Jesus to transform my heart, guide my choices, shape my character, and teach me how to use the life He has given me for His glory. My autism is part of my story, but it is not the whole story. My personality may influence the way I communicate, think, process information, and experience the world, but it does not determine the condition of my heart.

That is why the message behind Micah Tyler's song Different became meaningful to me as I developed this book. The song challenged me to think beyond simply being different and to consider what it would look like for the life of Jesus to become visible through my own life. The most important difference is not the way I appear to other people. The greatest difference is what Jesus is doing within me.

Jesus is still calling me to love, forgive, serve, obey, grow, and surrender. He is teaching me how to respond when I am frustrated, how to remain patient when I feel misunderstood, and how to show grace when someone does not understand me. Being changed does not require me to become someone else. It requires me to surrender who I am to Jesus and allow Him to transform what needs to be changed.

There are still moments when I become frustrated because I feel misunderstood. There are situations where I have to stop and think carefully about how I should respond instead of simply reacting to what I am feeling, and there are days when I become overwhelmed, tired, or discouraged. Being changed by Jesus has not made me immune to those experiences. Instead, He is teaching me how to walk through them without allowing them to control who I become.

That is where living changed becomes real. It is easy to speak about faith when everything is peaceful, but our character is revealed when life becomes difficult. When someone misunderstands us, do we respond with grace? When we are treated unfairly, do we surrender our desire for revenge to God? When we are disappointed, do we allow bitterness to take root? When we fail, do we run away from Jesus in shame, or do we return to Him and allow His grace to restore us?

The answers to those questions are usually not revealed through one dramatic moment. More often, they are revealed through the ordinary decisions we make over the course of a lifetime.

That truth reminds me that every day matters. Every conversation matters. Every decision matters. Every opportunity to show kindness matters. Even moments that seem insignificant can become opportunities to reflect Jesus Christ.

The longer I follow Jesus, the more I realize that transformation is not about becoming perfect. It is about becoming surrendered. I am still learning, still growing, and still making mistakes, but I am learning not to use those failures as an excuse to remain the same. Instead, I bring them to Jesus and allow Him to continue His work in me.

Grace Keeps Me Moving Forward.

Grace does not tell us that sin does not matter. Grace reminds us that failure does not have to be the end of our story. When we fall, Jesus calls us back. When we become discouraged, He reminds us of His faithfulness. When we recognize something in ourselves that needs to change, He gives us the courage to surrender it.

The more I understand God's grace in my own life, the more I realize that I cannot look at other people through the lens of superiority. I cannot assume that because someone communicates differently, thinks differently, worships differently, or experiences life differently, they are somehow less valuable. Every person carries a story that I may never fully understand, and every person deserves to be treated with the love and dignity that Jesus taught us to give.

That does not mean that truth no longer matters. Jesus never compromised truth, but He never used truth as an excuse to stop loving people. He confronted sin while extending compassion, and He spoke with conviction while reaching toward those who were hurting. He demonstrated that truth and love were never enemies.

As Jesus continues changing me, I want that same balance to become visible in my life. I want to stand firmly for what I believe while remembering that the person standing across from me is someone God loves. I want to speak truth without becoming cruel, defend what is right without becoming hateful, and remain faithful to Jesus without believing that I am better than anyone else.

There will be days when I succeed beautifully and days when I fail. There will be moments when I respond with patience and moments when frustration gets the better of me. There will be times when I feel confident in what God is doing and other times when I struggle to understand His plan. None of those moments change the faithfulness of Jesus.

When I fail, I do not want to hide from Him. I want to run toward Him, confess what I have done, receive His forgiveness, learn from the experience, and continue walking. Failure may reveal where I still need to grow, but it does not have to become my identity.

Every new day gives me another opportunity to surrender my heart to Jesus. It gives me another opportunity to love more deeply, forgive more freely, trust more completely, and become more like Him. The goal is not to wake up tomorrow and suddenly become a completely different person. The goal is to wake up tomorrow and surrender that day to Jesus.

Faithfulness Is Built One Day At A Time.

When I look back over my own journey, I can see that many of the greatest changes Jesus has made in me did not happen suddenly. They happened gradually through experiences I did not always understand at the time. Some lessons came through disappointment, some through rejection, and some through being misunderstood. Other lessons came through realizing that I could not control how people viewed me, but I could control whether I allowed their opinions to determine how I lived.

My autism has taught me that the world does not always understand the way I experience things, but my relationship with Jesus has taught me that I do not have to be understood by everyone in order to be secure in who I am. I do not have to constantly explain myself to prove my worth, and I do not have to become someone else to earn acceptance. My identity is ultimately found in Jesus Christ.

That security does not mean I stop growing. It means I grow from a place of security rather than shame. I can recognize the areas where Jesus is still working in me without believing that my differences make me less valuable. I can celebrate the ways God has created me while remaining completely surrendered to His transforming work.

I Want Them To See Jesus.

Perhaps you are waiting for God to do something extraordinary in your life, and you have begun to believe that nothing is happening because you cannot see a dramatic change. Do not overlook what He is doing today. He may be working through the ordinary moments that you have learned to dismiss as insignificant. He is present in the prayers no one else hears, in the obedience nobody applauds, in the forgiveness nobody recognizes, and in the quiet decisions you make to follow Him when taking the easier path would be more comfortable.

He is present when you choose patience instead of anger, grace instead of resentment, truth instead of compromise, and faith instead of fear. The changed life is not built upon one dramatic experience. It is built through countless ordinary moments in which we choose, again and again, to follow Jesus Christ.

People may never remember every word I spoke or every accomplishment I achieved. They may not understand every part of my story, and they may never fully understand what it has been like for me to experience life as an autistic person. However, I pray that when people encounter me, they see something that goes beyond my differences. I pray they see the evidence of Jesus.

I want them to see patience where there could have been frustration, forgiveness where there could have been bitterness, compassion where there could have been judgment, and faith where circumstances could have produced fear. I want my life to communicate something that my words alone never could.

I do not need to become someone else to prove that Jesus has changed me. I do not need to hide the fact that I am autistic, and I do not need to be ashamed of the ways I experience the world differently. I simply need to surrender who I am to the One who created me and allow Him to continue transforming my heart.

Being different is not the final destination. Being changed by Jesus is.

When people see my life, I pray they do not simply see Bradley. I pray they see someone who has been forgiven, someone who is still growing, someone who still struggles, someone who still needs grace, and someone who has decided that Jesus is worth surrendering everything to.

That is the life I want to live. A life that does not point back to itself, but points to Jesus. A life that does not seek its own glory, but gives glory to the One who changed it. A life that is not simply different, but genuinely changed.

Living changed does not mean that I will never struggle again. It means that I have decided where I will turn when I struggle. I will turn to Jesus, surrender again, and allow Him to continue the work He began in me. I may be different, but I do not want my life to stop there. I want to be changed, continually shaped by Jesus, and increasingly willing for everything I am to point back to Him.