New Year, New Me?

What does it mean to change?
Every year around this time the concept of change is one everyone's mind! They may not call it "change" outright, they may use the term resolution or goal - but no matter how you slice it change is what is needed to reach their desired outcome.

I've been right there with everyone else; making plans and preparing myself to change the things I don't like in my life, or the things I feel can be improved. Basically using the new year as an opportunity for reinvention. But I've come to notice that every year I end up making the same resolutions I did the previous year and it got me thinking. Why is it that in certain areas of my life, no matter how hard I try and try to produce true lasting change...I just can't seem to make it stick! Why is that?! Why is change in these area so hard and oftentimes unattainable while others are not?

Bad Habit? Um...More Like Sin

One thing the Lord has been revealing to me these last few months is that certain attempts at change don't stick because I'm focused on fixing the outward result of something that is actually happening internally. There is a deeper issue getting ignored while I just try and patch things up on the surface. It's like treating the symptoms of a disease rather than the disease itself. Things may improve for a time but eventually the meds wear off and you're right back to where you started. 

I am finding that pinpointing the root cause, the underlying reason or motive behind our behaviors, is key to initiating true and lasting change. As I began evaluating myself, I soon realized that some of these "bad habits" are indeed sins. (I say some because obviously not all bad habits are necessarily sinful. Take slouching for example. Is it a bad habit? Yes. Sinful? I don't think so...). Sinful thoughts, beliefs, or motivations may be hiding under the surface of our unchangeable behaviors, even though the behavior in and of itself does not appear sinful to us. God's word tells us that...

"Every way of a man is right in his own eyes, but the Lord weighs the heart. " -Proverbs 21:2

When I started to take the time to reflect on my actions and figure out why I do what you do, I've been able to acknowledge sin-root of some of these habits I've been struggling to break. It's been a much needed breakthrough for me because I believe that it is only we are able to rightly identify the root of our behaviors that we are able to recognize the appropriate solution.

No Matter How Hard You Try, YOU Can't Fix Sin

We humans are naturally inclined towards sin. We are all born sinners (Ecclesiastes 7:20), we are dead in our sins (Ephesians 2:1), and we cannot "fix" our sin issue. So it's safe to say that, if certain undesirable behaviors and their consequences stem from a sin issue, we cannot permanently change them on our own. God's word states:

"Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots? Then also you can do good who are accustomed to do evil." -Jeremiah 13:23

No matter how hard or earnestly we try, we cannot work or will our way to a sinless life. It is not our nature to hate our sin and desire to turn away from it...in fact it is quite the opposite! Therefore, attempts to do it on our own will surely fail.

As a "doer" who normally has a goal / plan in mind and is able to stick with it and get things done (usually), you can imagine the frustration I felt, having the same exact goal / resolution year after year but being unable to attain it. It is only now, after the Lord has convicted me of a sin that I previously saw as just an inconvenient habit, that I see how I've been going about this all wrong! I had the wrong idea of what my real problem was and therefore put in place the completely wrong solution. The outcome was no real progress, no change, and one fed up chica!

True Change Made Possible

Thankfully, there IS a solution for the issue of sin! We are not left to our own devices in a hamster wheel existence of trying to fix the unfix-able. 1 Peter 2:24 states, "He [Christ] himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed" (emphasis added). It is only through Christ that we find freedom and salvation from our sins and the grace needed to overcome them.

So when God reveals sin in our life, our response as believers should be repentance, seeking His forgiveness, and then (by His grace) turning away from that sin unto righteousness:

"If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness." - 1 John 1:9

And as God, through His Spirit, continues to work in us "both to will and to work for His good pleasure" (Philippians 2:13), He makes us more like Christ, and we are able then to walk by the Spirit so that we will not gratify the desires of the flesh (Galatians 5:16). As God works to make us more obedient and conforms our will to His, we become more averse and sensitive to our sin, making us more likely to turn from temptation and less likely to sin.

I am now able to see my unchanged "bad" habits as the sins that they are and see those sins through the lens of God's truth. I am encouraged knowing that  I don't have to rely solely on myself but I can "be confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus" (Philippians 1:6).

How comforting and encouraging it is to know that God does not want us to stay in our sins and that He himself provides the solution and means for us to truly change!

So on that note! I think it would benefit all of us, especially those of us with yearly reoccurring resolutions, to evaluate these undesirable, yet so hard to change, behaviors. What is ruling your heart when you perform these bad habits? Is it pride, covetousness, lust, greed, gluttony, laziness...what motivates or insights this behavior and it's outward effects? You just may find that you had the issue all wrong and that maybe its time to apply the right solution.

xo,

Janine