Don’t Fight the Change

“Therefore, we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day.”  – 2 Corinthians 4:16

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I don’t like change. I’m someone who very much likes things to stay the same as they’ve “always been.” And I’m a stickler for traditions — just ask my family. I don’t like letting go of things, and I get super sentimental — even over things that a normal person really probably shouldn’t get sentimental about…

Don’t ask my family about that one. They’ll tell you embarrassing stories about a refrigerator and an old couch.

I find comfort in the things that have always been. I guess they give me a sense of steadiness, reliability, connection with the past and expectation for the future. They tell me, “This is how things are, and this is how they will stay.” And like I said, that comforts me.

So when circumstances or people threaten to change things up, change how everything has always been, change what I’ve always done — I can get a tad defensive.

I’m not only talking about daily routines and Christmas traditions. The same can be said for parts of my spiritual life.

You see, over the past few months, God has been teaching me what I consider to be a pretty pivotal lesson in my faith-walk with Christ. I mean, I fully expect that there will be many other future lessons in my life that I’ll learn, and I’ll say the same thing about those. But I guess that’s the beauty and joy of God teaching us new things — it’s always so exciting and crucial to our present life stage, and it always feels like the most important thing we’ve learned. I love it.

Anyway, the lesson — it’s got to do with sanctification. But that’s a big, scary word to some people (it always has been to me). It just sounds so…theological. So, allow me to insert what I would consider a synonym for sanctification:

Holy change.

That’s what God’s been teaching me — what holy change (sanctification) looks like. And let me tell you, it’s been a bit hard for me to swallow. But, oh, is it beautiful.

You see, the way I’ve always viewed the Christian life is basically summed up like this:

Realization of sin > Acceptance of Christ as Savior > Conversion > Working-to-better-myself-and-become-more-holy-because-that’s-what-a-good-Christian-does > Death > Eternal Life in Heaven

You can probably guess which part has been a bit faulty. Since the moment that I committed my life to Christ, I’ve always thought that it was my responsibility to live like a Christian should — to better myself, grow myself, mature, become more holy. And so for the past 12 years, that’s what I’ve done. I’ve done my devotions, in-depth Bible studies, gone to church, had deep discussions, stayed out of the party scene in college, prayed, asked for forgiveness, sang praise and worship songs to my God, didn’t watch those movies/TV shows, worked hard at all of my jobs, done my best to be kind and loving toward others, etcetera, etcetera, so on and so forth.

And sure, those things are good and important. But they are not what’s most important. They are tactics. They are “sin management.” They are things that I’ve done in an attempt to make myself more holy. And that attempt has failed, because making me holy is not my job.

Almost two years ago, I experienced another big “turning point” in my relationship with God (You see? Those “most important” moments just keep popping up!). You can read more about that lesson in my blog post When I’m Not Enough. But it’s clear to me now that the lesson I wrote about in that blog post was one that was necessary for me to learn first in order to be able to understand what God’s teaching me right now.

That lesson was — you guessed it — I’m not enough on my own. No matter how much value I place on living my life as a “good enough” person or being a “goody two-shoes,” I will never be enough. A years-long struggle in bondage to sin taught me that. Only with Him am I enough. His grace alone has saved me.

Lesson one.

Lesson two? It comes in two parts — I need to accept that grace, and I need to allow it to change me.

Part one. Accepting God’s grace is something that I somehow missed in this whole process. I understood that God had given me grace for my sin, and that he always would. But I hadn’t considered the fact that when someone gives you a gift, you need to accept it in order to enjoy it.

I had accepted the fact that God had given me grace, but I hadn’t accepted the grace itself. I still felt guilty for my past sin — for my current sin, for that matter — and I felt that it was only fair that I carry around at least some shame because of what I had done.

But God’s grace is not fair. It’s scandalous. It’s what we do not deserve, and it is freely given because He loves us that much. I was still walking around carrying this small, but still heavy, yoke of shame, when what God really wanted me to do was accept His grace and be completely free of shame. Only then could I truly enjoy and find life in His abundant grace.

And only then would I be able to allow the Spirit to change me…because of that grace. This is part two. As one of my new favorite writers/bloggers Phylicia Masonheimer puts it, “The gift of grace is realized in our life to the degree it is accepted.” ¹

If we don’t accept grace, it won’t change us. And it’s meant to change us. We are meant to accept grace not just to cover the wrong we have done, but to also change what we will do going forward.

Holy change. By the work of the Holy Spirit — and by His work alone.

I receive God’s grace. I accept God’s grace and His release from my shame. I allow and invite the Holy Spirit to change me because of it.

Sanctification — Holy change — is much less about what I do, and much, much more about what the Holy Spirit does in me. You see, I’ve realized that it’s out of my control. My sinful nature, it’s out of my control. It’s there, and it always will be while I’m here on this earth. There is absolutely nothing I can do about it.

And it needs to change in order for me to pursue holiness, but there is absolutely nothing I can do to change it.

But God — He can. As a believer and follower of Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit lives in me. And that Holy Spirit has a beautiful purpose.

To change. 

To take the sinful desires of my flesh, and to change them. To take the bitterness in my heart, and to change it. To take the fears and worries I have, and to change them. To take the weaknesses I have, and to change them. Always into something that looks a whole lot more like holiness.

And my flesh, it wants so badly to fight the change. Because it likes the comfort of how things have always been. So I have to wake up every day and remind myself, “Don’t fight the change.”

I am not enough. With God, I am enough. His grace has saved me. His grace has changed me. His Holy Spirit is alive within me. I am a child of God experiencing holy change.

And can I just say? It’s beautiful. And for once in my life, I’m excited about the change. I now look forward to getting to the end of my life — whether that turns out to be in old age or not — and being able to look back on the years I’ve spent on this earth. And although some things may have remained the same — objects I’ve kept through the years, traditions still going strong, routines still in place — I’ll still look forward to this one thing:

Being able to see and recount all of the many beautiful ways the Holy Spirit has changed my heart over the years. To see who I was, and who God has made me to be.

For right now, I so look forward to the journey. The journey of holy change.

 

 

 

¹ (2017) “Christian Cosmo.” Pg 65.

Photo by Hanny Naibaho on Unsplash