The Kind of Change that Produces Character
Do you know what it feels like to live in misery? Specifically, I am asking about the pain of mental and spiritual anguish. Do you know the pain of living a life that is falling apart? Here are some scenarios that you might have experienced:
Do you know what it feels like to live in the midst of major financial insecurity? Have you seen debts piling up so high and so fast that you just knew there was no way out?
Or do you know what it feels like to be in a marriage that seems to be falling apart? Have you replayed ongoing arguments in your mind and in your life with your spouse? Have you felt the pain in your heart just grow and grow until you went practically numb
Or have you felt the pain of being maligned and slandered by others? Or have you had a dark secret come to the surface that brought intense humiliation and rejection? Have you been caught in a web of bitterness, believing that everyone is out to get you?
If you stop and think about life, you realize that people are not able to change many things. You can’t change who your parents are. You can’t change your spouse (though some people foolishly think that a “change of spouses” is what they need). You can’t change how people act and think. You can’t change the world economy.
Yet you do have power to change one thing – YOUR ATTITUDE! If there are many problems and conflicts in your life, have you ever stopped to think about the one thing that is common to all of those problems and conflicts? Again, it’s you!
I’m not suggesting that you are at fault for all of your struggles. But do you learn from your struggles? Or do you simply become embittered and wait for everything around you to change?
Do you remember Helen Keller? She was a healthy young girl until a prolonged high fever left her blind and deaf. Listen to what she said later in life:
Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through the experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened.
Rather than looking at adversity as something meant to bring you down, what if you viewed it as an invitation to embrace the most important change of all? Embracing change in our own lives is a good thing. All of us have deficiencies that need to be corrected. But if you're like most people, you will tend to be complacent until the pain of remaining the same is greater than the pain of change. Embrace the kind of change that produces character.
And not only that, but we also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God's love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us (Rom 5:3-5).
Do you know what it feels like to live in the midst of major financial insecurity? Have you seen debts piling up so high and so fast that you just knew there was no way out?
Or do you know what it feels like to be in a marriage that seems to be falling apart? Have you replayed ongoing arguments in your mind and in your life with your spouse? Have you felt the pain in your heart just grow and grow until you went practically numb
Or have you felt the pain of being maligned and slandered by others? Or have you had a dark secret come to the surface that brought intense humiliation and rejection? Have you been caught in a web of bitterness, believing that everyone is out to get you?
If you stop and think about life, you realize that people are not able to change many things. You can’t change who your parents are. You can’t change your spouse (though some people foolishly think that a “change of spouses” is what they need). You can’t change how people act and think. You can’t change the world economy.
Yet you do have power to change one thing – YOUR ATTITUDE! If there are many problems and conflicts in your life, have you ever stopped to think about the one thing that is common to all of those problems and conflicts? Again, it’s you!
I’m not suggesting that you are at fault for all of your struggles. But do you learn from your struggles? Or do you simply become embittered and wait for everything around you to change?
Do you remember Helen Keller? She was a healthy young girl until a prolonged high fever left her blind and deaf. Listen to what she said later in life:
Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through the experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened.
Rather than looking at adversity as something meant to bring you down, what if you viewed it as an invitation to embrace the most important change of all? Embracing change in our own lives is a good thing. All of us have deficiencies that need to be corrected. But if you're like most people, you will tend to be complacent until the pain of remaining the same is greater than the pain of change. Embrace the kind of change that produces character.
And not only that, but we also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God's love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us (Rom 5:3-5).
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