Imagine you have a piece of Play-Doh, and someone is trying to squeeze it into a mold to make it look exactly like everyone else’s Play-Doh. That’s kind of what the world tries to do to us! The world wants to squeeze us into thinking, acting, and believing the same things as everyone else.

One Bible translator named J. B. Phillips put Romans 12:2 in a really cool way: “Don’t let the world around you squeeze you into its own mould, but let God re-mould your minds from within.” It’s like the world is constantly putting pressure on us to fit into its “mold”—to care only about being popular, having lots of money, or looking cool. But God wants to shape us from the inside out!

So how do we avoid getting squeezed into the world’s mold? It depends on what (or WHOSE) mold we are fitting into. And if we are like the Play-Doh, then we should let the Person shaping us be God—His hands should be the ones shaping us into what we are!

And how do we do that? It’s super simple: By filling our minds with God’s truth instead of the world’s! The more we read the Bible, pray, and think about God’s ways, the more we allow God to shape us!

Take Action: Think about the “molds” the world might try to squeeze you into. Maybe it’s pressure to cheat on tests because “everyone does it” or to be mean to someone because they’re different, or to lie to your parents to avoid getting in trouble. Make a list of these pressures. Then next to each one, write a Bible truth that can help you resist that pressure. Remember: You’re being shaped by God, not squeezed by the world!