Change
The hours and minutes on the clock change, yet it still remains a clock. The months and days on the calendar change, yet it never stops being a calendar. I can say one day I am this, and the next day say I'm that. I can wake up one day and feel a certain way, and the next day do a 180 and go the other way. Does that mean that change has happened?
Does true change start on the inside or the outside? It seems the gold standard for change today is based on how one feels at a particular moment in time. So, is that the way change happens?
At my age I have the advantage of looking back on mistakes I have made. What I have learned (the hard way) is that if I respond or react to a situation based solely emotion, it is guaranteed to be wrong about 99.5% of the time!
Some think that change is everybody else's responsibility, but if everyone were to do what you alone think that they should do, then what happens to free will? So if change is not emotion based, how do we get to real change? I could say for my whole life that I intend to make changes and nothing will ever happen because true change is not an intention but an action. Don’t think "will I change?" but "how much and into what?"
Niccolo Machiavelli once said, "There is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its success than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things." I'm just using half of the statement to illustrate the enormity of the task ahead of you when you finally decide to take on real change.
The Bible speaks of change in Psalm 32:8 and 2 Peter 3:9 to name a few, but I have yet to see where it says to say the sinner's prayer and magically life changes in and around you. It takes work, hard, consistent work, with fruit being the evidence of true change. I talk with lots of men who have experienced divorce, and there are two consistent things I hear. It's either all her fault, or they can't quite put their finger on exactly how it happened!
I have been through divorce myself and I keep coming back to something I have said before, Divorce = all the hard work you chose not to do! I think it's very important to remember that Jesus laid the frame work for our success through His sacrifice, but we still have to choose to acccept it and stay the course. Sometimes every moment of every day, when you do this, you will be tested, so learn what the full armor of God is and ask Him how to put it on and use it. And when that tree bears fruit, there will be no denying that true change has taken place!
Wake Up Christian
