Change is Hard Part 2

Yesterday I posted a list of things that can make change difficult. You can read it here. Today, I have another list of things that often make change hard.

• Sometimes the fear of failing can make change difficult. We may have tried that before and things went well for a few weeks, but then the wheels fell off and things went back to worse than they were before.

When you think about it nothing is easy at first. Everything we’ve ever done in our lives was difficult in the beginning. Watch toddler (why do we call them that?) learning to walk. Up, down, up, down, up, down. Then stand, fall, stand, fall. Walk along holding on to things. Finally, running after the older brother. Learning to read was hard. I remember looking at the back of the math book at the beginning of the school year, not recognizing anything and wondering what planet I’d just dropped into. There was no way, I could learn math. Then, 9 months later, I was finishing the book like I knew what I was doing.

We need to anticipate that there will be setbacks. We will do well for a season and then all of a sudden, oops, back to square one. God is calling us to be changed into the likeness of Jesus (2 Cor 3:18) and change is hard. The cool thing about our life in Christ is that God has promised that he will complete his work in us (1 Thess 5:24; Heb 13:20-21). It’s hard, but trust in him. Let him love you, and choose to respond in obedience and faith that it will work, and you will change. It’s a kind of magic.

• Believing various things about ourselves causes change to be difficult. Thinking that we were “born this way,” makes changing all but impossible. Instead of saying, “I eat too much,” I believe, “I’m a fat person.” Instead of saying, “I have various kinds of temptations.” I believe, “I am the person who does those things.”

Words mean something. They have a life of their own. Once they are out there, things change. What wasn’t, once it gets a label or is defined, becomes. And once it becomes, being or doing anything else is very hard. If you think you are worthless, it is difficult to do or be anything other than what “worthless” people do and are. If you think you are a robber, it is hard not to steal things. If you think you are a homosexual, it is hard not to think, do, or be a homosexual.

I’m not sure where the line is between being someone who does X and becoming an X. But either way, the solution is to believe someone else. Who have you been believing? Who speaks into your life, telling you who you are or what you are? I suggest that if they are telling you something other than what God tells you in the Scripture, you politely tell them to hit the road. And if you are the primary one telling you who you are, you need to change (there’s that word again) where you are getting your input.

Instead, you should go here, look up the scripture references (so you’re hearing it from God himself) and ask God to convince you that what he says about you is true. Then believe him, listen to him, trust him, obey him, walk with him, and then, be yourself.

• Sometimes change is hard because we try to change too much too quickly. We want to run a marathon so instead of walking half a mile each day, we have someone drop us off 23 miles from home and leave us there to run home. If we make it or have to call them to come get us, we’re so sore for the next two weeks we don’t try again.

This difficulty can be something that Christians, especially young Christians, experience. We watch older, more experienced Christians humming along, walking with God, apparently without a care in the world. They seem to have their ducks in a row. They know a lot of Scripture. They seem to be perfect. Then we see verses like, “because it is written, “Be holy, for I am holy” (1 Pe 1:16) and think there’s no way I can be perfect. Are you out of your mind? 

First of all, no one is perfect. Everyone can put on their godly Christian face for a few minutes each week. What most of us present to the public is very different from what is going on in our hearts much of the time.

Second, while it is true that God has made us holy and that he tells us to be holy, he also knows that he is working in us to make us perfect, or holy. So, we are holy, but we are also being made holy (Heb 10:14).

Knowing this takes the pressure off. We are expected to trust God, to know and understand what he has done for us in the Gospel, and to obey him, but as for our being perfect, that is something he does in us. We aren’t expected to jump to Christ’s likeness overnight. It isn’t even something we could do if we wanted. Like running a marathon or swimming the Channel, we can’t do either without a lot of training and time.

The thing that derails us in the Christian life is that we sin. We’re all excited to skip and leap with Jesus (Acts 3:8), and bam! we blow up at our wife. We think we’ll never get this right. But I think I mentioned this in the last post, “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 Jn 1:9). And the cool thing is that he isn’t angry with us. He’s for us. He wants us to succeed. He is a loving father, whose child can’t get that walking thing—yet. 

• Another reason change can be hard is that we focus on what not to do rather than on what we’re changing to. We don’t like a particular habit and spend all our time thinking about not doing that habit. We think about pink elephants when we know that thinking about pink elephants is bad.

I was working on a project with a friend one time, trying to hammer nails into a stud. I realized, as I was working, that this situation was the perfect opportunity to be left-handed. My friend was left-handed, so I asked if he would hammer the nail in for me. He was happy to help. While he was working, I noticed that he was very intent on looking at the head of the nail. I asked him if he ever hit his thumb. Before he answered, I could see his eyes shift from looking at the nail to looking at his thumb. You know where the next hammer stroke landed. I felt really bad, but then I wouldn’t have this cool story to tell. You usually hit what you aim at. And you certainly can’t hit what you aren’t aiming at.

This works for almost everything. If you are focused on not sinning, you will invariably sin. If you are focused on what you don’t want to do, you will have a difficult time not doing it. The solution is to focus on what you want to do instead. If you want to walk with God, stop thinking about not walking with God and focus on God instead.

If you want to stop thinking about white elephants, think about blue elephants. If you want to stop sinning, start obeying. Simple, I know.

• Sinful habits make doing anything and everything else difficult.

We usually think that a habit is something that just happens. There’s no choice involved, we’re on autopilot and we just do what we do without any thought. But is this true?

What if you started thinking about habits as decisions you make quicker? What if we realized that God wants to give us new habits more than we want new habits? What if God gave us the power to remember the new thing we’re going to do now instead of what we used to do? The Bible tells us that all this is true. God works everything in our lives to make us more like Jesus (Rom 8:38-39). He empowers us so that we can do what he calls us to do (Phil 4:13). He loves us so much that he sent his son to die for us (Jn 3:16). Can you imagine with all those promises, that he would just abandon us to wander along, being enslaved to our passions, lusts, and sinful habits? Me neither.

Let him change your habits. Ask him to remind you before you get to a place where you turn into autopilot. Ask him to give you wisdom about how to respond to temptation way before you are in that situation where your previous habit kicked in and you sinned. Then, think, act, believe, trust, and do what your new habit tells you to do.

We create new habits by doing the same thing over and over until it is a decision we make so quickly we don’t think about it anymore. In the same way we created sinful habits, we can replace those with godly habits. The great thing is that God is in it with us.

• Finally, we try to change on our own, all alone.

This one is very common. Did you know that there are almost 60 “one another” verses in the Bible? These verses tell us to do various things for one another. We are to lay down our lives for one another (1 Jn 3:16); serve one another (Gal 5:13), help one another (1 Cor 12:28), and on and on. Did you know that the Christian life is made up of believers who have been and are being molded into a living body with Christ as the head (1 Cor 12:12-14)? God calls it the church. In the church, there is no such thing as a lone ranger Christian. We are all in this together.

Here’s the thing. Most Christians want to help others, but no one wants others to help them. It is usually a pride thing. To ask for help you need to admit you need help. You need to admit that you can’t do something by yourself. Sometimes you have to admit that you aren’t who you were or who you were presenting yourself to be.

But how can those who want to help and are gifted to help, help if no one will let them? More of us need to let others know we need help so that they will have the opportunity to help. We need to make being helped a ministry to those who want to help.

In the area of change, everyone wants to help everyone else. No one thinks trying to live the Christian life can be or should be done alone. So, don’t even try. Get involved in a church where they preach through the Bible. Get involved in a church where the people love one another and do a lot of things together and think children and old people are important. Get involved in a church where everyone is changing and knows what that means.

I hope this helps.

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