Mind, Heart, Tongue: Wrestling with Transformation

Romans 12:2 tells us not to conform to this world but to be transformed by the renewing of our minds. On paper, it sounds simple, even aspirational. But in practice, it feels like a wrestling match inside—your heart, mind, and flesh all tugging in different directions. Chance the Rapper captures that exact chaos in The Heart and the Tongue: “my heart and tongue are fightin’, my mind and flesh are beefin’, my heart and flesh are racing.”

Reading those lyrics, I can almost hear the command of Romans 12:2 echoing through the tension: transformation is messy. It isn’t a clean cut from old habits to new life. It’s a battlefield where your desires, thoughts, and impulses don’t immediately line up with what you know you should do. Your heart wants comfort, your mind wants clarity, and your flesh just wants to follow the path of least resistance.

And yet, that tension is exactly where transformation lives. The call to renew your mind is not passive—it asks you to sit in the friction, to let your inner landscape be reshaped even when it hurts. Chance’s words make that feel alive; the fighting, the beefing, the racing—all of it mirrors the inner struggle of trying to obey, trying to change, trying to align your heart, mind, and tongue with something higher than yourself.

Maybe that’s the beauty of this process: you don’t need perfection, you need awareness. You notice the fight, the racing, the misalignment. You let it surface, examine it, and slowly, prayer by prayer, thought by thought, word by word, your mind and heart begin to cooperate with your flesh instead of resist it. Transformation is gradual, but it’s happening every time you choose to engage the struggle rather than ignore it.

Romans 12:2 isn’t just a command—it’s a lived experience. And Chance’s lyrics don’t just describe conflict; they validate it. They remind us that change is never neat, that wrestling is part of the journey, and that when your heart, mind, and tongue finally start moving together, it feels like a small victory, like a glimpse of the new creation God promises.