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Starting anything new is kinda terrible.
What I mean by terrible is that it’s oftentimes slow, painful, mentally taxing, and overall exhausting as we strive to gain the motivation needed to progressively work toward our ideal goal.
In my current situation, I am in the ongoing process of kicking off a non-profit program, growing my ability and project output as a musician, keeping an actual budget, try to change the world, and being a consistent blogger.
The journey to kick-start new life ventures or add a new component to our already jam-packed daily schedule is and will always be uncomfortable. It wouldn’t be a change if it wasn’t uncomfortable.
Our true character is revealed when what brings comfort is challenged, changed, or collapses.
How do you respond to change? Do you avoid the alterations or accept the ambiguity?
I find myself seemingly “wanting” to change but in a constant battle against complacency.
Every night when I go to bed, I get on my knees and pray to God. At this same time, I reflect on my day and ask myself, “Did I accomplish what I set out to accomplish today? Could I confidently say that I made a difference with my life today? Was my day filled with victories or marred with struggles?”
Too many times my answer to those questions is “no.” My feeling of a lack of fulfillment is backed by asking myself, “Why can’t I follow through with my personal commitments? When will I finally stop struggling with (insert personal struggle)? How can my days be filled with execution and not stained with excuses?”
Above all, I have come to realize that the problem rests not in me “wanting” to change, but in my lack of “needing” the change to occur in my life. Until we realize that change is necessary and needed, we will be left in the endless, comfortable state of complacency; hence we won’t change.
I am immediately reminded of the Biblical parable in the book of John, chapter five, beginning in verse one:
Jesus arrives to Jerusalem for one of the Jewish Festivals. There is a pool in the city at which “a great number of disabled people used to lie—the blind, the lame, the paralyzed.” One invalid, in particular, had been there for 38 years! Jesus approached him and simply asked, “do you want to get well?” The invalid responds with reasons (as known as excuses) for his inability (for 38 years, mind you) to get down to the water when it is stirred, justifying his lack of action and unchanged state.
Jesus simply responds, “Get up! Pick up your mat and walk!” At once the man is cured; he picks up his mat and walks. It was that easy for the man! For 38 years, he had been waiting, “wanting” for his life situation to change for the better but he was held back by excuses, doubt, a lack of faith (in Jesus of course, but also in himself).
What is holding you back?
Most of us avoid change due to our excuses, doubt, unwillingness to take action, and are then left just like the invalid waiting at the healing pool; unfulfilled and “okay,” due to our personal justification of our debilitating state.
We can change.
Regardless of the number of years you have been struggling with whatever it is, change is one perseverance away.
That being said, the action that it takes to start this process comes from what you personally believe about yourself and your current situation. In order to change, you must believe that you need to change and that you can change!
True belief spawns action. For example, when people quote John 3:16 (“For God so loved the world…whoever believes in him will be saved”), most will infer that the “belief” that is being referred to is an intellectual belief in Jesus.
False! (Even the demons “believe” in one God (James 2:19)) This then means that true belief in Jesus will result in obedience to His teaching (the Bible). Again, true belief spawns action.
What do you believe about yourself?
For Christians and non-Christians alike, Jesus is always here, asking “do you want to get well?” Jesus can heal our life’s “paralysis.” He is the solution to the change that we seek.
In a strictly “secular” sense, whatever new beginning you are looking to have, it can happen. But this new beginning will only come from a daily, personal decision to discard the old and develop the new.
New beginnings only come to those who are willing to surrender the current mediocrity and fight for the coming masterpiece.
The invalid waited 38 years to do something about his life. How long have you been waiting?
Pick up your mat and walk. A greater life awaits.
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