Hi Beth,

Wouldn’t it have been great if God would have put a button in the middle of our forehead that we could push whenever we want sin to stop in our lives? We could push it and everything would be okay. But he didn’t give us a button. Instead, he says simply, change your mind. Lay down your claim to be god. Lay your life down on the Cross of Christ and die. Change your mind from doing things your way to doing things my way. And you either do, or you don’t.

One way of thinking about this that we don’t often hear now days, is that the heart is often a synonymous word for mind. When the Bible talks about how we respond to the commands of God, sometimes it tells us to circumcise our hearts, which means to change them by cutting off the old way of thinking, feeling, and living (Deut. 10:16). It also, and more often, uses the word “repent.” This word comes from the Greek word which puts two words together, “change” and “mind”. This means that when we realize our sinful state (Acts 2:37) and the outcome of our disobedience, we need to repent and actually “change our minds.”

This change of mind, which we choose to do, is actually a change of heart. We choose to lay down our false and seditious claim to being god of the universe (even if it is just our little universe) and pick up God’s honor and glory.

But this decision that we make is not a simple one. We love thinking we are god. We don’t want to obey the real God and we will fight to the death the right to be god in our own lives. That’s why Jesus told us we need to pick up our cross and follow him. And we need to pick it up daily and continue to follow. But these are decisions we make with our minds and our hearts. Once the decision to obey and follow is made, we do the things God has for us to do, and in both the changing and the doing, we are obedient.

When we separate the mind from the heart in an unbiblical way we end up thinking that only God can work on the heart. This is true and it isn’t true. God does change the heart, but he commands us to change our hearts. Only God can give us joy, but he tells us to rejoice. Only God can grant repentance, but he commands us to repent and follow Jesus. With this in mind, I suggest that you stop waiting for something magical to happen in your body that will cause you to be obedient, and just give up and obey. Start with taking out a hymnal and your bible. Have a nice chat with God about what I’ve written here, see if it is true, and then go to your husband and confess your selfishness to him and beg him to forgive you.

You’re right when you want to stop “shoulding.” But instead of waiting, you need to decide to begin doing.

I hope this helps.