How Does One Change?

What does it take to change? What does it take to turn from the steps we tread day after day until we almost walk them again without thinking? A day comes and we realize we have to change. How do you all of the sudden begin forming a new trail?

I hear talks sometimes at church, like this past Wednesday, where I feel this desire spring up within me to change and I know that in my heart, this change will bring me the joy, fulfillment, and closeness to the Lord. And then I wake up the next morning and even without thinking I am on my same trail. I `get out of bed just like yesterday and I begin walking and thinking just like yesterday. It’s frustrating and it makes me feel fake and weak at heart. Yesterday I said I wanted to change and here I am walking the same trail a week later. I need to do some thinking on this.

Here is how I naturally start thinking. I could say that I just need to start taking steps off the trail and walking. I’m not walking where I want to be and so it seems like I should just start walking off the path in the direction I want to go. I could come up with a list of the ways I want to change and start putting them into practice. And so I leave the trail and start walking off into the woods and eventually I get weary of this new trail. Without really much thinking, I end up back on the old trail because it’s so much more comfortable, especially in the midst of my weariness.

As I was praying about all this, I was shown what the problem is for me. My heart is connected to the trail and the steps that I take. No wonder it is so hard for me to form a new trail because I am forming a new trail for my heart. It’s not just a change in action but a change in heart.

So what does it take for my heart to change? I am drawn back to the day when the Spirit of the Lord first came upon my heart and breathed life. I was awakened and gave my heart to him and told him I wanted to be his. This was the first time I really prayed. And it was the Spirit that actually wrought the change in my heart, not any action of my own. So I wonder what should be different now as I long for heart-change? I can change myself on the surface, true, but I am powerless to change my own heart. To have my heart changed by the Spirit, I need to pray. I need to spend time with the Lord, before him, my heart and his heart. Then I need to take intentional steps off the trail, listening to him as I go, letting him awaken new desires for these new steps, and letting the old desires for the old steps die however much it hurts. My heart is left asking, Who is sufficient for these things?

"Not that we are sufficient in ourselves as to claim anything as coming from us, but our sufficiency is from God."