New Year, New Start?

I think that for many people the new year becomes a time of both reflection and then a hope for a new start in some aspect of their life.  For some it is the new start in diet and exercise that they look forward to.  For others it is perhaps a new start in some aspect of their goals - be they at work or at home.  It is a time to make plans and get organized in some aspect of life for a good number of people.  I wonder however if anyone has actually taken the time to analyze the nature of change itself and wondered why and how it is that so many people fail when they have this new start. 

Change in general is a difficult thing.  And many people see change as something within their grasp to do as if change were simply a mental choice - I want to change the way that I look at something and so I just say, I am going to change and magically, change will happen.  Except that does not seem to match the reality that change is hard and sure enough frustration comes because change does not actually happen no matter how much I mentally assent to the desire to do so. 

Some people think that if they just get the right tools that change will happen.  If I want to change my life through exercise I simply have to buy the best machine on the market and when I have the proper tools and the mental desire I will be able to of course change.  And yet a number of homes have machines gathering dust.  Apparently, adding the proper tools to the arsenal of mental desire is not sufficient to create change either.

I say all of this because many of us desire change in some spiritual aspect of our lives and we simply get frustrated and even maybe angry when this change does not occur.  We have the desire and we may even add tools to our list but at then end of the day we have not really changed our mental state or the spiritual conditions we desire to change.  My contention is that part of what change entails is a process - a process of first of all understanding the conditions that are contained by that which I need to change.  If I am changing my diet I need to understand why my diet is the way it is.  In order to change my diet I need to understand the reason I eat and the reasons I eat what I eat.  I need to deal with the change not just at the level of the food entering my mouth but the change the food that is available to put in my mouth and change not only the access to food, but the mental and physical processes behind them. 

When it comes to spiritual change I need to understand that there is a fundamental truth that seems to come with this type of change.  It begins with surrendering my own ability.  In other words, I cannot at the end of the day actually accomplish changing my spirit at all.  That is work that only God can do as I am willing to surrender the process and the results to Him.  I cannot do anything apart from Christ and His Spirit living in me.  But I also need to understand that surrender does not mean just giving it up and doing nothing.  Surrender involves finding out what He to whom I am surrendered wants me to do.  And so I need to turn to the Word of God to see what He would have me do instead of just doing on my own.  And in it all I must admit the temptation and habit of taking back that which I am doing and wanting credit for myself.  It is a perpetual process of surrender and recognition that I cannot do that which I must let the Spirit of God do in my place which leads me to do that which only He can enable me to do.  No wonder change is so hard!

I say all of this not to just increase understanding of a complex process of change but to encourage you today that if you are wanting to change to do so in the way that God designs.  Seek in His Word that which He would have you do to change from the root of the problem to its surface.  Pray continually as you do that you would not take control from Him, but instead surrender to Him as He accomplishes the change that only He can do.