Changing Your Life

We are in the season of Lent.  Lent is one of the most important times on the Christian calendar.  It’s not a joyous time, the way Christmas and Easter are.  Lent is a serious time.  Lent is a time for us to think about the sacrifices Jesus made for us.  That includes, of course, the ultimate sacrifice, when he was crucified to take the punishment for our sins.  It’s also a time when we are supposed to repent of our sins and really change our lives.

But how many of us ever do that?  Seriously, how many of us really repent of our sins and even make much of an effort to change our lives?  Some probably do--maybe it’s even you.  But I suspect a lot of us don’t.

I think there are probably a few of reasons for that.  One of them is that, deep down, most of us don’t think we’re all that bad.  I mean, we’d admit that we’re sinners.  We’d admit that we need God’s love and grace and forgiveness.  But we tend to think, “Well, you know, I’m doing okay.  I’m not perfect, but I’m okay.  I’m doing about as well as anybody could reasonably expect me to do.”  We don’t try very hard to change because we don’t really think we need to.

Another reason is that, even if we realize that, in theory, we should change, a lot of us are comfortable with our lives as they are.  Many of us like our lives the way they are.  And even if we don’t, well, we’re used to it.  It’s what we know.  If we truly repent, if we truly try to change, well, what could that lead to?  We don’t know.  It’s kind of scary to think about.  It’s much easier, it’s much safer, to just keep living like we are.

And another reason is that true repentance, really changing our lives, is hard.  The things we do, the attitudes we have, the thoughts we have, are all pretty deeply ingrained into us.  Most of us have gotten into habits that we’ve had for quite some time.  Our thoughts and words and actions often happen automatically, before we even stop and think about it.  Making even simple changes, like deciding to give up sweets or something, are pretty hard for us.  Making really deep changes is a lot harder.  For some of us, it’s so hard that it seems impossible, and we don’t even try.  For others, we do try, but we get discouraged and give up.

True repentance, truly changing our lives, is hard.  If it was easy, we’d all have done it a long time ago.  We cannot do it by ourselves.  Well, maybe that’s painting with too broad a brush.  Maybe you can truly repent and change your life by yourself.  But I know I can’t.  The only way I can truly repent of my sins and change my life is with the help of God.

So in this season of Lent, I encourage you to pray.  “Oh, that’s the pastor’s answer to everything:  pray.”  Well, yeah, that is a tendency when you’re a pastor.  But I don’t mean just an ordinary prayer.  I mean really taking some time in prayer.  I mean really trying to open our hearts and our souls to God’s Holy Spirit.  I mean really asking God to come into our lives and change us.  And then, asking God to give us the courage, and the strength, and the determination, and the trust, to actually stick to the changes God starts making in our lives.

We emphasize repentance and changing our lives every year during the season of Lent.  Wouldn’t it be cool if this was the year we actually did it?