Change is scary for most of us. None of us wakes up and says, “Gee, I hope everything in my life changes today.” We like our routines, and we get comfortable in our daily habits; but sometimes those routines and norms we hold onto so tightly can get us stuck in a rut.
When I think about seasons of change, which is our topic for this week, I can’t help but think of the Serenity Prayer. It says:
God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
the courage to change the things I can,
and the wisdom to know the difference.
It does require courage to make changes in our lives, as the prayer says. In order to be successful, we have to be intentional about breaking free from old, destructive habits.
I know how hard change can be because I’ve been there. One example is how I used to attempt to pardon and overlook my bad behavior by stating as a fact that I am impatient. And by nature, I am impatient. Especially with slow drivers, slow checkout people, slow walkers, you name it. I can get irritated very, very quickly because I’ve lived a majority of my life in a hurry. I’m not always sure what I’m in a hurry about, but I always seem to be rushing around and running behind.
Yet one of the fruits of the spirit is patience, and God has convicted me repeatedly that I can’t use my natural tendency as an excuse any longer. I can and should choose to work on and attempt to change this behavior that doesn’t align well with my desire to be a light that points others to Christ.
Grumbling in the long, slow checkout line is definitely NOT what Jesus would do!
It hasn’t been easy, and I’ve failed lots of times on this journey of change; but, and this is a very big but, I am choosing to change the things I can. And here’s the best part of this whole change scenario: God doesn’t leave us on our own to white-knuckle our way through to better behavior. He sent His Son to go into the battle with us.
I love this story from the Book of Luke where Jesus challenged the Pharisees on this very topic. They were upset yet again with Jesus because He was eating with tax collectors and all kinds of ungodly people. I love how Jesus responded to the grumblings of the religious leaders:
Levi gave a large dinner at his home for Jesus. Everybody was there, tax men and other disreputable characters as guests at the dinner. The Pharisees and their religion scholars came to his disciples greatly offended. “What is he doing eating and drinking with misfits and ‘sinners?’”
Jesus heard about it and spoke up, “Who needs a doctor: the healthy or the sick? I’m here inviting outsiders, not insiders—an invitation to a changed life, changed inside and out.”
Luke 5:30-32 (MSG)
Go Jesus! He fights for us, you and me, the “misfits and sinners,” and invites us to a changed life. He assures us that we can, indeed, change from the inside out when we invite Him into the process with us.
We will never reach perfection, but we can most certainly take steps in the right direction. I can happily report, I have less and less days where I come home from Walmart on a busy Sunday afternoon feeling guilty about my bad behavior triggered by my lack of patience. It still happens, but it’s getting less and less frequent. More and more I feel the gentle prompting of the Holy Spirit when I start getting impatient; and with God’s help, I’m able to slow my roll a bit and simply take a deep breath as I wait.
Let me give you hope, my friend: if I can do it, so can you! This is HUGE for me, really HUGE! I used the crutch of “this is how I was made” for way too long. This is one of those things I can change, and slowly but surely, God is changing me from the inside out, making the changes in me that I can’t do on my own.
The Serenity Prayer also talks about the wisdom to know the difference between what we can change and what we can’t. We can’t change others. As hard as we try and as much as we may want to, we can’t. We can’t change our past, good or bad. We can’t change the family we were born into, crazy or not.
But we can change behaviors that don’t exhibit the grace and mercy we’ve been given by a Loving Father, a grace and mercy He wants us to lavish on others.
And Jesus will give us the power to do just that if we choose to change the things we can!
God bless you, my friend, in your season of change!
Love and hugs,
Jill
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