Imitators

What are you imitating? Imitation is something that is derived or copied from an original. So what are you copying? Are you imitating your parent's behavior? Are you imitating your friend's behavior? Are you imitating the culture's behavior? What are you imitating?

Watch what God does, and then you do it, like children who learn proper behavior from their parents. Mostly what God does is love you. Keep company with him and learn a life of love. Observe how Christ loved us. His love was not cautious but extravagant. He didn't love in order to get something from us but to give everything of himself to us. Love like that.

Ephesians 5: 1-2

Most of us imitate things and behavior without even knowing that we are doing it. I sit with so many people who are copying their parent's or friend's behavior, yet if you point this out to them they will say something like, "I told myself I would never be like ..........." It is the very resistance to the idea that you are like someone and copying their behavior that does not allow you to change it. In therapy we say "what we resist persist." So we have to acknowledge that we are copying, imitating something. So what is it? Are you willing to be aware of it? Once you are you can change it and start looking at what God does, how God loves, and learn proper behavior. You must "keep company" with God to learn this. This is a process that happens with much patience and awareness. Once you do this you will start imitating what you are keeping company. Most of us spent at least 18 years with our parents and somehow we resist the idea that we copy their behavior at times!

Spend time in the company of God through prayer, meditation, silence, solitude, and reading. Then practice imitating what you have learned in the company of God. Be aware that you are copying something and be will to keep company with something different. Imitate the love of God and be extravagant with others. Love like that.

Namaste'