Take Charge of the Change!

“If a man dies, shall he live again? All the days of my hard service I will wait, till my change comes.” Job 14:14 

Job faced imminent death. Covered with boils, family and wealth gone, he sat in ashes, scraping his sores with a pottery shard. Life was miserable, painful and depressing. All he could look forward to was death. You know life is bad when the only thing that sounds good is death! 

“What if you were given that choice? What if it weren’t just the hyperbolic rhetoric that conflates corporate performance with life and death? Not the overblown exhortations of a rabid boss, or a slick motivational speaker, or a self-dramatizing CEO. Your own life or death. If you didn’t change, your time would end soon — a lot sooner than it had to. Could you change when change really mattered? When it mattered most? Yes, you say? Try again. Yes? You’re probably deluding yourself. You wouldn’t change. Don’t believe it? You want odds? Here are the odds, the scientifically studied odds: nine to one. That’s nine to one against you. How do you like those odds?” -Change or Die! FastCompany 

Dr. Edward Miller, CEO of Johns Hopkins University turned the discussion to patients whose heart disease is so severe that they undergo bypass surgery.  Many patients could avoid the return of pain and the need to repeat the surgery—not to mention arrest the course of their disease before it kills them—by switching to healthier lifestyles. Yet very few do. “If you look at people after coronary-artery bypass grafting two years later, 90% of them have not changed their lifestyle” Miller said. Unbelievable. 

Five Myths About Changing Behavior.  Dr. Miller elaborated with this analysis.  “1. Crisis is a powerful impetus for change. 90% of patients who’ve had coronary bypasses don’t sustain changes.  2. Change is motivated by fear. It’s too easy for people to go into denial of the bad things that might happen to them. 3. The facts will set us free. We are guided by lifelong habits, not facts.  We reject facts that don’t fit our habits. 4. Small, gradual changes are easier to make. Radical, sweeping changes are easier because they bring fast results.  5.  We can’t change because our brains are “hardwired” early in life. Our brains can change.  When we put forth the effort, we can learn new things.” 

You may not be able to change yourself.  But God can change you!  “Therefore, if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.  2 Corinthians 5:17 So, let’s study these five myths about changing behavior:  1. Crisis. The crisis won’t do it, but the crisis leads you to God—He can do it!  2. Fear.  Let’s not talk about denial.  Instead, talk about the good things that will happen when you change!  3. Facts. My God is the Lord over the facts!  He can change you in the face of the facts.  4. Small, gradual changes.  Radical, sweeping changes are easier because they bring fast results.  Nothing is more radical than being born again.  5. Our brains are “hardwired.” Our brains can change.  When we put forth the effort, we can learn new things.  The God who created your DNA can change your spiritual DNA.  You become a new creation. “But you shall receive power when the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and you shall be witnesses to me.” Acts 1:8. 

“No one ever excused his way to success.” -Dave Dotto.  It’s time to take charge of your change!  With God, all things are possible!