Haven’t we all had this experience? You swear off sweets, then arrive at work and it’s the boss’s birthday party and you have to accept a piece of cake? Or you join a gym and suddenly your work responsibilities double and you feel like you’ll never be able to work out and you might as well quit? Or you have a plan for daily Bible reading but suddenly you are too sick to read, and when you finally feel better, you are overwhelmed with your to-do list, and reading the Bible feels like a luxury you cannot afford?
Change is hard. Big change is really hard.
America’s founders wanted a divorce from the Mother Country. They declared their independence citing 27 grievances against King George III. What happened? All-out war. But Americans maintained their RESOLVE and built the greatest nation of independence and representative democracy in history.
But on one issue, the founders punted: slavery. It was a problem they could not address while also battling England and establishing a fledgling nation. Eighty years (four score) later, their descendants ended the evil practice of slavery—and the nation paid for it in a bloodbath resulting in more deaths than all other US wars combined.
Ancient Egypt also enshrined an evil system of slavery—and that nation paid a price too: the ten plagues so greatly crippled Egypt that it never again achieved the prominence it once had. The fish were destroyed, crops destroyed, livestock destroyed (what’s left to eat?), first-born males destroyed, the army destroyed.
Change is hard. Really big change is REALLY HARD.
“Though youths grow weary and tired, and vigorous young men STUMBLE BADLY, yet those who wait on the Lord will gain new strength. They will mount up with wings like eagles, they will run and not get tired, they will walk and not become weary” Isaiah 40:30-31.
It is hard to change. EXPECT resistance and problems. Sometimes you will STUMBLE BADLY. Hang in there! Change anyway. It is worth it!
ΑΩ
Household Words: 