James 1:4 NLT

Pursue change

If you’re serious about changing your life, a well-known leadership expert offers this advice: “Don’t just change enough to get away from your problems – change enough to solve them. Don’t just change your circumstances to improve your life – change yourself to improve your circumstances. Don’t do the same old things expecting different results – get different results by doing something new. Don’t see change as something hard that must be done – see it as something helpful that can be done. Don’t avoid paying the immediate price tag of change – if you do you’ll pay the ultimate price of never improving.” The Bible s ays, “When your endurance is fully developed, you will be perfect and complete, needing nothing.” Character building is a slow process; don’t expect it to be easy. When you try to escape life’s difficulties you short-circuit the process, delay your growth, and end up with a worse kind of pain – the useless kind that accompanies denial and avoidance. A letter was once returned to the post office and handwritten on the envelope were these words: “He’s dead.” Due to an oversight the letter was sent again to the same address. This time it was returned with a note that said – “He’s still dead!” Let’s be honest, most of us don’t like change; we do everything in our power to avoid it. We want improvement but we don’t want to pay the price that goes with it. And that’s a problem, because you’ll never become what God intends you to be by remaining what you are. It’s not enough to want change, and be open to it, you must pursue it!

Soul food: 2 Sam 1:1-3:21; Mat 25:1-13; Ps 109:16-31; Prov 18:1-3