Become willing to change (3)

Change must happen inside you before it can happen around you. In an old Peanuts comic strip, Lucy tells Charlie Brown she would like to change the world. So, Charlie asks her, ‘Where would you start?’ In typical Lucy fashion, she replies, ‘I would start with you.’ Think about it: when we have marital problems, we sometimes pray, ‘Lord, help my spouse to change!’ But maybe things will improve when you’re willing to pray, ‘Lord, help me to change!’ Changing the atmosphere and dynamics in your home usually starts with changing your own actions and reactions. The Bible says, ‘Be tender-hearted, and keep a humble attitude… Don’t retaliate with insults when people insult you. Instead, pay them back with a blessing. That is what God has called you to do, and He will bless you for it.’ (1 Peter 3:8–9 NLT) When we don’t like something, we want everybody—except us—to change! The truth is, we’re resistant to change.

In The Secret Garden, Frances Hodgson Burnett puts it like this: ‘At first people refuse to believe that a strange new thing can be done, and then they begin to hope it can be done, then they see it can be done—then it is done and all the world wonders why it was not done centuries ago.’ To change your world, you must first change yourself. The psalmist prayed, ‘Search me, O God, and know my heart; try me, and know my anxieties; and see if there is any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.’ (Psalm 139:23–24 NKJV)

As you begin to change for the better, others will notice and react to you accordingly. So, make this your prayer today: ‘Lord, let the change I seek begin in me!’