Encounter, Formation, Mission: Formed, Not Conformed | Melissa Snow

What if the spiritual life we're living is perfectly designed to produce the results we're getting? This powerful message confronts us with an uncomfortable truth: we are all being formed into something, whether we realize it or not. Just as our physical systems adapt to our environment, our spiritual lives are shaped by a constellation of choices—the media we consume, the relationships we nurture, the practices we maintain. The central question isn't whether we're being formed, but what we're being formed into. Are we being conformed to the patterns of this world, or transformed into the image of Christ? Drawing from Romans 12:2 and the story of Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane, we discover that spiritual formation isn't about earning salvation—it's about establishing guardrails in our lives so that when pressure comes, when we're pulled in multiple directions, we can hear God's voice above the noise. The Mario Kart analogy brilliantly illustrates this: without spiritual practices, we're constantly falling off the edge and being rescued, but with intentional formation, we build guardrails that keep us on track even when we take wide turns. We were created in God's image, deformed by a broken world, but through Christ, we can be reformed. The challenge before us is clear: will we establish rhythms of prayer, Scripture, community, and service that connect us to God, or will we sleep through the critical moments like the disciples did?