Lessons From a Monk

My family have begun to love the T.V. show Monk over the last few months. Thanks to instant streaming on Netflix, we can watch all the episodes over the last 9 seasons whenever we have an hour to spare- which I admit we make in order to watch it. The show is about a former detective who is afraid of everything and has an extreme obsessive-compulsive disorder to name but a few of his issues. It's funny to watch him having to deal with life while at the same time being driven by the same issues in order to solve crimes.

We are watching the show in order from the beginning, and last night we found we had made it to Episode 1 of Season 5: Mr. Monk and the Actor. In this episode, an actor begins following Monk around in order to play him in a movie that was being written about a famous case which he had recently solved. Over time, this method actor becomes so engrossed in the personality of Monk that he can no longer separate his own past and personality from those of the man he was sent to imitate, and has a mental breakdown.

It's interesting that I have noticed that about myself. In the past I use to act just like whomever I was hanging around at the time. It got so bad that for a season of my life I didn't even know who I was apart from these different groups. I just so desperately longed to fit in as a teen and young adult that I automatically assumed the personality of those I was near in order to have something in common. It's only been in the last 10 years that I have grown out of that, but it was a real challenge and something I had to watch closely. I still do it to some degree with speech patterns- I pick up accents and dialects very easy. My husband loves to laugh that he can often tell who I'm on the phone with just by the way I'm speaking and with which dialect!

As I thought about this today I realized that this was not a curse, but a gift- when used in the right way. In the Bible, Paul tells us we should be imitators!

Be imitators of me, 

as I also am of Christ.

1 Corinthians 11:1

We are to pattern our attitudes and lives after Jesus Christ. (Philippians 2:5, 1 Peter 2:21) The more I started thinking about it, the more I realized how wonderful it would be to become so close to Christ that I loose myself in Him. 

Imagine the glory we could bring Him if we were that dedicated!