Change

I’ve had lots of change in my life over the last month or so. If I’m being honest, I don’t really like change. When I think of change, I think of either something being forced on you, or something that is completely not working so you must rethink how you are doing it. The changes in my life probably fall into both categories. The hardest thing about some of the changes is that other people are involved. That means that I am dealing with my emotions about change while also thinking about how others will react. Over the years I have discovered that even if people want change, they still don’t really like the process of going through the changes. When I go somewhere that I go on a regular basis, I want it to be an easy process. When I say that, I think of driving to work every day. I want it to be boring, that’s why construction makes us so mad. Construction while driving is an obstacle that I just don’t want to deal with when it comes to my daily routine. So even though they are fixing the roads that I have been complaining about for months, I don’t like it. Since I know that change is hard, I think I try and change a little bit at a time. I have a list in my head of ten things that need to change, but I know that if you change more than 2-3 things at a time, it won’t go very well. If you try and focus on diet and exercise and tracking your food and doing meal prep all at the same time, chances are pretty high that it won’t work out. You need to slowly introduce change for one thing and then once you have that down, go to the next thing. It may take six months, but in the end, you are successful in all areas. All of those things make sense to me, and I agree with them. But then I heard something last week that threw me off of my thinking. What I heard was that if you make small changes, you will see small improvements. That made a lot of sense with what I have seen over the last month. I’ve been playing everything safe and small. When I look at the overall picture, I’m happy with how things are going, but I also think it’s going slower than I want. I don’t see the impact that I wanted to see. So, what is my next step? Does that mean that the next change I make needs to be a little bigger? Maybe! What if it needs to be really big? I also wonder if I keep thinking about everyone else, but the big change needs to be in me. The expectations I have for myself needs to be greater than what I have for everyone else. I know some people might disagree with that, but I feel like it’s an accurate statement. If I want people to read 3-4 chapters a day in the bible, I need to be reading more than that. I need to be looking at the current state of everything, while also looking ahead to future needs. If I want people to make prayer a priority, then how can I make it the last thing I do every day? I’ve been telling everyone the last few weeks that I want them to focus on the gifts that God has given them. I want them to pray that they not only know what their gift is, but they can have direction of how to use those gifts and how to improve those gifts. I need to make sure that I am doing the same things. Am I clear on what gifts God has given me and am I using them to glorify him? I know that overall, some changes need to happen. I know that right now I am thinking too small and that is why I am not seeing the impact that I want. But I also need to push myself. I can’t be so afraid of change that it’s keeping me from doing what God has planned for my life. I need to be prepared to do whatever God calls me to do, even if it makes me uncomfortable or if it means making a lot of changes. I think I am going to be asking a lot of people to make some changes as we finish 2023, I need to be the example.