We never know when we will take our last breath. So why not spend our every breath living the transformed life we desire, rather than living dead in the grave of regret? Change is possible. Today is a new day. We may not have tomorrow, so let’s make the most of the gift of the time we have.
Photo Credit: Almost Midnight Free Stock Photo – Public Domain Pictures
With God, every day is New Year’s Day. He supplies the power we need to change. We don’t need to keep putting it off. When we stumble and fall—when we wrestle with our old habits and ways, we don’t have to wait long for another chance to turn it all around. Every minute of every day is a new opportunity for transformation.
Photo Credit: Footprints in the snow, Highway to… © Kenneth Allen cc-by-sa/2.0 …
What difference would it make to know that change is possible today, and every day, and every minute of the day? And it’s possible in the most impossible of circumstances, the most stubborn of habits.
Photo Credit: Free illustration: Change, New Beginning, Board, Wood – Free Image …
Today is the day of salvation, this moment is the moment for renewal and change. We don’t have to wait another second, another minute…another year. This is the time for new beginnings—a new season, a new day.
Photo Credit: A brilliant sunrise over a very cold, snow covered Crystal… | Flickr
I thought TV without electricity was an impossibility until I lived for a short time in a squatter community in the Philippines. The community ran along the tracks—so close you could reach your hand out the window and touch a passing train. There was no running water, no refrigeration, and no electricity. You’d think that would mean no TV, but somehow the resourceful people of this community found a way to tap into the city power source so they could watch their favorite shows.
Considering the situation, I realize if we really want something, we’ll find a way to get it. We may live each day believing we’re stuck in our current circumstances. But if we really want to change, we’ll find a way to tap into the power that enables us to change.
One of the biggest lies of our generation is that change is impossible. What a hopeless, depressing thought—that no matter how much we desire to be different, we’re trapped for life, bound by habits that steal all life and joy, stuck in self-destructive ways, doomed for broken relationships.
The good news is that change is possible. People may say that you were born this way, and you can never change. But what is impossible with man is possible with God. The one who turns night to day and winter to spring can usher a new day and season into what man would call the most hopeless of lives. Change is not an impossible dream. It’s just a matter of tapping into the right power source.
“Jesus looked at them and said, ‘With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.’” (Matthew 19:26)
“The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” (Luke 4:18-19)
“See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland.” (Isaiah 43:19)
We have a God who sympathizes with our every weakness and gives us power to change.
If we need help, all we have to do is ask.
After multiple times telling my daughter to shut down her video game, I was beyond exasperated. “If you don’t shut it down, I’ll do it for you,” I warned, hand poised to take control of the computer mouse.
“Would you please, Mommy?” She pleaded, hand glued to the mouse. “‘Cause I can’t STOOOOOOOP!”
The scene reminds me of all the times I’ve felt powerless to change apart from divine intervention. My attention is so easily divided, my affections so quickly diverted. It’s like the Apostle Paul said of his struggles, “I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do.”
The good news is that change is possible. With Paul, we may cry, “What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death?” But God has promised to rescue us from the hand of those stronger than we are. In other words, those habits we hate yet can’t escape—God is able to set us free.
Just as my daughter recognized her inability to let go of that which so gripped her attention, and just as she asked me for help—we have a God who sympathizes with our every weakness, and gives us power to change. If we need help, all we have to do is ask.
“Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ my Lord.” (Romans 7:25)
This Life & Beyond 
You must be logged in to post a comment.