What Are the Two Things that Bring About Deep Change in You, even in the World?

Before I could even think, the words came out.   And, the moment they did, I was already regretting them.    I wished that, somehow, I could turn back time, replay the whole scene.    But I couldn’t.   I had again said words I regretted, words that hurt, words that betrayed my fears and anxieties.   And I had said them even though I so much didn’t want to. 

Now, I resolved to do better the next time, to make sure there wasn’t a next time.  But I didn’t know if my resolution could hold.   I did not have full confidence that hurtful and fearful words would not come again.   Have you ever struggled like that?  It might have been words you regretted saying yet kept saying nonetheless.  It might have been a habit you hated yet still couldn’t break.    It might have been a way of thinking that sabotaged, an attitude that tripped you up.   And let’s be honest, those struggles are likely not all in the past.   You still wrestle with some of them today. 

But, how do you change that?   How do you get better, become better?  These sorts of changes don’t come easily.   The writer Bill Owens put it this way.   “People are not resistant to change.  They make changes all the time.  They are resistant to being changed.”   How do you change like that, have change work on you from the inside out?   In these words, God shows you the path to change, to a life of greater fulfillment, growth and joy then you could have imagined.    Here God shows you that way. Let’s listen and hear what God has to say. 

Philippians 2:12-13

How does change happen, deep, internal change happen; the type of change that frees you from fears and habits that have captured you for too long?  How does that sort of change happen?   In these sentences from Paul’s public letter to the church in Philippi, God tells you.   That change happens as you let God work on the two things that prevent that change, the willing and the working.   What does God mean by that?  Before you can see that, you need to understand how God works in bringing change in you in the first place.  So, how does God do that?

Simply put, God rescues you.   Yet, God can’t rescue you alone.   God needs you for that rescue to happen.    That’s why, in Paul’s words, God tells you just that.  God says.  Work out your own salvation, your own rescue, with fear and trembling.     But does that make sense?   Isn’t the whole point of a rescue that the rescuer does the work, and you don’t?   Yes, and yet no.   The brave divers rescuing those kids in Thailand will be doing a lot yes, but asking a lot of those kids also. 

In fact, do you realize that ocean life-guards aren’t expected to rescue everybody?   Certain folks their trainers order them not to rescue.   When a life guard rescues someone, that person in distress needs to do something quite difficult.  They must stop fighting to save themselves.  They must let the rescuer do that instead.    And if that person continues to fight, in spite of everything the lifeguard does, (and lifeguards have lots of techniques to calm people down.), then as a last resort, lifeguards, to save themselves, might have to swim away, and call in a rescue boat or helicopter to do the rescue.  And when God rescues you from yourself, the same pattern applies.     

You have to stop fighting, and let God do in your life what only God can.    You have to let go, and that can be really hard.  But until you do, the rescue simply can’t happen.  

I’ve asked folks I’ve known in 12 step programs about what I can do with someone caught up in addiction who won’t get help.    Do they give me a technique to win them over or wake them up?  No.  They simply say this.   He’s not ready, and when she’s ready she’ll come.   That doesn’t mean they don’t care.  They do.   But recovering addicts know a painful truth.   You can’t rescue someone who doesn’t want to be rescued.  

And if you want God to rescue you from yourself or from some negative habit or behavior, it begins there.  You need to be willing to be rescued.  That means trusting that God can do the rescuing.  And that can be harder than it looks.   Many years ago, I talked with a colleague about an issue I was facing, and how I was struggling to trust God with it.    Matter-of-factly he replied.   “Of course, you’re struggling.  After all, he can’t be trusted.”   I got the point.  Do you?   Do you as times not let go because deep inside you don’t trust God will do what you need God to do. Or maybe you don’t because you fear that God will.   

And that points to the first obstacle, the willing.  In the gospels, Jesus is preparing to heal a man lame for decades, when he asks a seemingly pointless question.   Jesus asks.  Do you want to be healed?   But Jesus asks it, because Jesus know.  Often people don’t.   

When I struggle to overcome a habit or behavior or way of thinking that besets me, I remember this question my therapist sister gave me.   What’s the pay-off?  She’d ask.  You wouldn’t do it or have trouble letting go of it, if you weren’t getting a pay-off, even if it’s a negative one.   And every time I’ve asked that question, I’ve gotten an answer, usually an uncomfortable one.  That thing I struggle to overcome does have a pay-off, maybe an illusion of control or a sense of superiority or a momentary shot of pleasure or whatever.    I realize, painfully, that part of my struggle is admitting part of me doesn’t want to be healed.   And only when you face that willingness question, even ask God to help you with it, can God bring you the healing you need.

But even when you are willing, you can still resist the work.  Letting go and letting God does require something from you.  It requires an admittance of your own powerlessness, that you need the rescue.  It requires a relationship with God that only comes through regular connection with God, practices like prayer, scripture reading, Christian worship and community.  Above all, it requires believing that yes, this God can be trusted to give you the life you yearn to have, a life full of abundance and joy and meaning.   How do you find that trust?

You realize that God, when you resisted his rescue didn’t swim away.   In Jesus, this God came and rescued you even when he knew he’d die in the rescuing.   He did that because he loved you that much, that deeply, that infinitely.    And because his love was that great, not even death could defeat it.  Instead his love won.  And it will continue to win, in every area of your life, if you let go and let him work.  It won’t always happen overnight, but it will happen.  It will happen, much as how what happens when you eat something happens. 

When you eat something, wondrous things occur.  Your body converts it to energy.  It uses it to create muscle, repair injuries. It even disposes what you don’t need.  All of that happens, without you even thinking about it.   In much the same way, Jesus can and will work, transforming you, repairing you, removing what you don’t need, when you receive what God yearns to give.  And it will happen in ways of which you may hardly be aware.  There's a reason why how Christians celebrate God's work of change at a table where they eat and drink.  So, eat and drink God's salvation, including at the Lord's table and then let Jesus work.   Let Jesus rescue you as only Jesus can.