Day 2540 of the 7 day Bible verse challenge.


Luke 9:62 NIV

We struggle with things that are hard. We have a rough time adjusting to change. For the most part we all prefer to find a rut that seems to work well enough and consign ourselves to staying there. It's easier to keep doing the same thing. It's easier to keep making the same choices. But as we talked about yesterday, what if those same old choices are the wrong choices? What if doing the same thing that we've always done only keeps us headed toward disaster?

It's not worth it! Yes, it's hard to change. It's hard to sit down and take those honest looks at our lives and discover all the poor choices we're making. It's hard to be brutally honest but that's the only path that leads us to improvement and growth. So while it may hurt our pride to be truthful with ourselves, it's the only way to find those areas that we're messing up and begin to fix them. It's the only way to realize just how badly we need to make some massive changes if we really want to live better lives.

And to be honest, that right there is the sticking point for many. And I'll be the first to admit that I've caught myself in that comfortable rut lately. We claim to want to be better people, to live better lives, to make all these changes that we know we need to make. Yet they don't get made. Those lessons don't seem to get learned. Those improvements never seem to come around. And we start wondering why. Why is this certain issue not getting better? Why do I not seem to be making any progress? Why am I still struggling with that same sin that I've been wanting to put behind me for so long?

Maybe the real question is just how badly we want to change. How much does it really mean to us? Just how badly do we really want something different, something better? That's the biggest part of all this. We can change. We can learn. We can grow, and improve, and do better. But only if we want to. Only if making those changes becomes a matter of life and death to us. Only if the sins in our lives become so deplorable in our eyes that we can't bear the thought of them any longer. Until we reach that point where it finally becomes do or die, we're just going to keep finding ourselves in that comfy rut that we've settled for.

I think a lot of it comes down to doubt. We doubt that what we'll find on the other side of change is better than what we leave behind. We doubt that it's going to be worth all the hard work and effort it takes to do things differently. Maybe we simply doubt that we can change at all. But as long as we listen to those doubts and use them as excuses to keep from trying then we'll never get anywhere. We'll just keep running back to what we've decided is good enough, even though we know it's nowhere near what's best.

Friends, when God puts something on our hearts, He does it for a reason. He has a purpose. He's trying to help us learn something, to grow in some way, to better ourselves and improve our walk with Him. Never doubt that. Don't look back on what He's trying to lead you away from. Don't wonder if He's going to lead you to something better than what you're leaving behind. Those doubts only become hurdles that easily slow us down or send us running away from the path that He's trying to lead us down.

We're going to experience a whole lot of change in these lives of faith following Christ. But every single change is for the best. We're going to leave a lot of things behind. We're going to walk away from things that we may have spent our entire lives trying to get. We might go through seasons where nothing makes sense and we crave the comfort of the old lives we once lived. But don't go running back to what you've been praying for God to lead you away from. Don't give in to this innate fear of change.

Yes, it is hard, and it takes time, and it may not always seem like it's working out. But God will get us where He needs us to be, where we truly want to be if we just keep following Him and refuse to look back on what's behind us. Our old lives and the selfish and sinful ways that we’ve always know will be there calling us to come back. But just remember that you know what’s back there. And remember how long you asked God to lead you toward something better. Those voices calling you back will fade, but only if we stop listening to them and stop looking behind us to see what we’re walking away from.

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