When you get to my age, you’ve pretty much given up on "New Year’s Resolutions!"    They just aren’t very effective and you often find yourself making the same ones year after year after year LOL!  Yet if you’re like me and want to change important areas of your life, it’s actually important that we think about this a little bit more at this time of the year.  But how can we make change that lasts rather than resolutions that fade into oblivion?

When I look back just one year at how much I’ve been changed it never seems like very much.  But if I look back twenty years and see the amazingly different person I am today versus who I was then, I’m encouraged to keep moving forward.  Like interest in a savings account, change happens over long periods of time in small increments that can greatly add up.  Change happens when we begin to THINK differently and then begin to APPLY those changed thoughts in a way that CHANGES OUR ACTIONS.  Permanent change happens when our hearts and/or our minds have been changed significantly enough to impact our actions.

The way the Lord has helped me to make lasting changes in my own life, is to ask Him to change me by praying for His help.  I have learned that admitting I am helpless on my own is the first and most important step.  Sometimes, to be honest, I don’t even really want to change I just know that I should.  Sometimes I even have to ask Him to help me to be willing, to be made willing to change!  I’ve learned to ask Him for  His insights, His instructions and then the courage to obey what He directs me to do.  It sure isn’t very glamorous, but it’s been pretty amazingly effective over the years.  Have you ever asked for God’s answers to your problems rather than just telling Him what you think the answer should be?  It’s a very different concept and one that is a powerful change agent.

I have one more very important question for you.  How do you know the direction that you want to take your life in is the correct one?  Change can be for good or for bad — it’s not enough to merely want to change, but to change in a way that will be a blessing to your life and the lives of those you love.  People often bank on the newest fad to direct their lives, but can you think of a fad or two that have passed by and seem pretty silly in retrospect?  I sure can!  I want to invest the years I have left to live, on a direction that I won’t regret at their end.  For me, the only reliable, never changing, always effective direction for my life comes out of what I believe to be the word of God, otherwise known as the bible.

So, this year, I am going to do something a little differently.  I find that there are two simple practices that have hugely changed my life, reading/studying and then PRAYING God’s word into my life.  So at the end of each day’s post instead of a simple scripture of the day, I’m going to add a prayer that applies that scripture to my own life.  I trust that I will change in new and fresh ways and that those of you who also walk this path of faith will come along and share the journey with me.

Rom 12:2  Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is-his good, pleasing and perfect will. NIV

PRAYER:  Lord, I am not as good as I would like to be at discerning what truths are good, what are useless and what will ultimately  turn out badly if I apply them to my life.  Please give me your wisdom, insights, and understanding of the areas I need to be changed and then give me the courage to act on those insights. 

I admit that I’m powerless to make lasting change.  I’ve tried over and over again with little success.  Remind me daily that you LOVE to transform my life!  I really do want your good, pleasing and perfect will made real in my life.  Please help me to find it and then to be willing to let you make the changes in my heart and my thinking that can bring it to pass.  Amen.