Healthy Changes Produce Growth

So many things can run through our minds and hearts that it can be difficult to know where to begin. But sometimes the best place to begin is simply to become still—to settle ourselves, quiet the noise, and make room to hear what God is speaking to us personally.

These thoughts are simply study notes from my own journey. They are not a formula, a rigid teaching format, or something you have to accept exactly as written. Take what speaks to you, study it for yourself, search the Scriptures, and allow the Spirit of God to show you what He wants you to see. If something doesn't help you, throw it away. That's okay.

My desire is simply to share what God has been teaching me.

Healthy Change Produces Growth

I keep coming back to the subject of healthy change because healthy change produces growth.

We never arrive.

Growth is a spiritual phenomenon that continues throughout our lives. As we transition from one season to another, we discover things we once wanted to know and experience things we once wanted to see. But while we are here, growth is perpetual.

That means every one of us has areas in our lives where God is inviting us to grow.

Nobody else can define exactly what those areas should be for you. God knows what He wants to develop in you so that you can better understand His character and become more like Him.

New Wine Requires New Wineskins

Jesus said:

“Nor do they put new wine into old wineskins, or else the wineskins break, the wine is spilled, and the wineskins are ruined. But they put new wine into new wineskins, and both are preserved.” — Matthew 9:17

The wineskin creates a structure that holds the wine. Jesus was using something familiar to His audience to illustrate a spiritual principle.

The new wine represents the newness of what Christ brings. And the wineskin represents the structure that must be able to contain it.

We cannot continually receive something new from God while insisting on remaining in the same old structures, patterns, and ways of thinking.

This is particularly important for those of us who teach or minister the Word. We have to learn how to balance our lives with what the Word of God is showing us.

If we don't live what we teach, eventually there will be a disconnect. There is something powerful about teaching that comes from a life that is actually surrendering to the same truth being taught.

We cannot put the message of grace into the old wineskin of legalism.

The law showed us our boundaries. It revealed what we could and could not do. It demonstrated our inability to make ourselves righteous through our own efforts. It was a hedge, a boundary, a protection until Christ came.

But grace changed the relationship.

Grace doesn't say, “You must perform perfectly so God will love you.”

Grace says that God has already loved you, already chosen you, and is working within you.

That changes everything.

Change Begins on the Inside

Change is the act or process of becoming different. Most of us understand that intellectually.

We've all said things like:

“I’m not going to do this anymore.”

“I’m really going to change.”

“Starting today, I'm going to pray every day.”

“This is the last time.”

And then, somehow, we find ourselves doing the same thing again.

Why?

Because our minds alone cannot produce the transformation our spirits need.

We can make resolutions. We can write down goals. We can promise ourselves that things will be different.

But real spiritual change requires grace.

The Spirit of God works from the inside out.

We are human beings who naturally strive for internal order. We want peace. We want stability. We want things to make sense.

We know when we have peace, and we know when we've lost it.

Sometimes the people around us seem to take our peace away. Sometimes circumstances do it. Sometimes our own thoughts do it.

Part of growing spiritually is learning how to protect the boundaries God has given us while also learning how to surrender the things we cannot control.

That takes practice.

We don't automatically know how to move into the supernatural place where we can say, “God, I can't do this on my own. I surrender this to You.”

And then we breathe.

We let go.

And change begins.

We Are Always in Transition

Accepting change is difficult because change requires transition.

Transition is the process of passing from one form, state, or stage into another. It is a shift in direction or course.

Every life cycle brings change.

Therefore, every life cycle requires transition.

And whenever we transition, we have to find our balance again.

I've experienced this personally in profound ways.

For several years, I have been learning what it means to transition from a life I shared with someone I adored for 59 years. When a person has been part of your everyday life for that long, you develop patterns. You develop routines. You develop a way of doing things together.

And when that person is gone, you cannot simply become the person they were.

You have to transition.

I cannot take over someone else's role. I cannot become someone else. I have to separate myself from that former season and allow God to show me what the next season looks like.

That doesn't mean I have to pretend I am happy about the change.

Sometimes acceptance and happiness are two different things.

I can accept something without liking it.

I can accept that a season has ended without saying that I am okay with losing it.

But acceptance allows me to move forward.

And that is what God asks of us in many areas of life.

There are things we have to release because God is preparing us for something we cannot see yet.

Old Patterns Can Become Comfortable

Old familiar patterns create routine behavior—both positive and negative.

And we can become comfortable with both.

That's one of the most dangerous things about patterns: familiarity can make something feel right simply because it is familiar.

We develop routines without realizing how rigid they have become.

Think about something as simple as where you sit.

At home, at the dinner table, in the office, in your car, at church, or even on a boat—many of us have an unassigned “assigned seat.”

Then somebody sits there.

Suddenly, we have a problem.

Why?

Because somewhere along the way, we turned a preference into a rule.

It may seem funny, but it reveals something about us.

How flexible are we?

How rigid are we?

What happens inside us when something doesn't happen the way we expected?

Sometimes the smallest disruptions expose the strongest patterns.

And if we're willing to be honest, those moments can teach us something about ourselves.

Spiritual Rigidity

The same thing can happen spiritually.

God may speak something new to us through His Word, and our minds hear it—but our hearts reject it.

We don't necessarily say, “No, God, I'm not doing that.”

We simply don't surrender.

We hold on to what we've always believed.

We hold on to what we've always done.

We hold on to the familiar.

And that is how spiritual rigidity develops.

God wants to lead us into something new, but we insist on remaining in an old pattern because it feels safer.

Grace enables us to move from rigid behavior to flexible behavior when we permit the Holy Spirit to guide us.

Think about your own life.

Have you changed things about yourself that you once believed could never change?

If you have, you already know something about surrender.

Change begins with surrender.

It begins with listening.

And it begins with trusting that when God reveals something to us, He is not trying to make our lives worse. He is leading us toward something better.

Every Trial Prepares Us for the Next Transition

Every trial and every test has the potential to prepare us for the future.

When we surrender to God in the middle of a trial, we become prepared for the next phase.

We don't have to keep missing the next season because we are still clinging to the previous one.

Sometimes we don't recognize that we have entered a new place because we haven't allowed God to change the behavior that belonged to the old place.

The Holy Spirit will reveal things to us that need to change.

And if He reveals it, He is ready to help us change it.

He doesn't expose something in order to condemn us.

He reveals it because He wants to heal, strengthen, mature, and free us.

That's grace.

Freedom from the Law of Performance

One of the greatest freedoms we have in Christ is freedom from the law of performance.

We don't have to work our way into God's love.

We don't have to live under the constant fear that if we fail, God will stop loving us.

We don't have to condemn ourselves because we made a mistake.

And we certainly shouldn't spend our lives condemning other people.

When we continually judge and condemn others, we eventually turn that same judgment inward.

We become experts at finding fault—with everyone, including ourselves.

But God does not see us the way condemnation sees us.

In Christ, we are accepted.

That doesn't mean our behavior never needs to change. It means our behavior is not the foundation of God's love for us.

He is working from the inside.

That is freedom.

Freedom from religious restraints.

Freedom from the constant pressure to perform.

Freedom from the fear that we are never good enough.

Freedom from the belief that every mistake means God has abandoned us.

Christ has embraced us.

Christ lives within us.

And He is working from the inside out.

The Presence of God Within Us

The Old Testament law was written on stone.

It was glorious, but it was external.

The glory associated with Moses eventually diminished because the covenant itself was pointing toward something greater.

In Christ, something changed.

We are no longer simply looking at God's glory from the outside.

The presence of God lives within us.

Our lives are no longer one-dimensional.

There is depth and complexity to what God is doing inside us.

We carry His presence.

And when we learn to surrender to that presence, something begins to change in the way we live.

The Spirit of God doesn't simply come and go from us. He is present.

The question is whether we are operating from that presence or operating from our own thoughts, emotions, passions, desires, and fears.

When we learn to recognize His presence within us, we begin to live differently.

And sometimes that presence becomes evident to other people simply because of who we are becoming.

Look Into the Mirror of the Word

If we want to know how to live during turbulent times, we need to look at Jesus.

Not the culture.

Not the anger around us.

Not the harsh words people are using.

Not the constant arguments and division.

Look at Jesus.

Read the Gospels.

Read the words in red.

Look at His temperament.

Look at His choices.

Look at how He treated people.

Look at what He tolerated and what He refused to tolerate.

Look at His compassion.

Look at His strength.

Look at His willingness to confront evil without becoming evil Himself.

Then look in the mirror.

James gives us a powerful picture of this:

“For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man observing his natural face in a mirror...” — James 1:23

The Word shows us who we are and who we are becoming.

But we cannot simply hear it and walk away.

We have to live it.

We have to allow the Word to become part of us.

We have to become doers of the Word.

That is where growth happens.

We Don't Have to Be Weird—Just Genuine

I don't want believers to be strange for the sake of being strange.

I want us to be genuine.

I want our faith to be real enough that it changes the way we respond to people.

I want our lives to reflect Christ.

I want us to be able to walk into a room carrying peace instead of bringing chaos.

I want us to become people who listen when the Spirit speaks.

People who can change.

People who can transition.

People who can admit when an old pattern isn't serving God's purpose anymore.

People who can release what is behind us without losing gratitude for what it taught us.

And people who can step into the next season without knowing exactly what it will look like.

Because growth is perpetual.

We will never arrive at a place where there is nothing left for God to teach us.

There will always be another transition.

Another opportunity to surrender.

Another area where grace can transform us.

Another place where God can reveal His character through our lives.

And that is not something to fear.

It is something to embrace.

A Prayer for Healthy Change

Father, thank You for Your Word.

Thank You that You meet each of us exactly where we are and speak to us in the way we need to hear You.

Thank You that our lives can change from where we are today into what You desire for us tomorrow.

Give us the courage to recognize the patterns that need to change.

Give us the grace to surrender what we cannot change ourselves.

Teach us to recognize Your presence within us.

Help us become flexible when You are leading us somewhere new.

Protect us as we transition from one season into another.

Give us revelation about who You are and who You are making us to be.

And let our lives become a blessing to everyone we encounter.

Thank You for Your love that never changes—even when we do.

Amen.

If you'd like, I can also turn this into a more personal, warm devotional-style blog post with a stronger storytelling voice, or into a shorter polished article for a church website/newsletter.