Refresh Your Life: A Core Idea in How to Change

There are many lessons in how to change but wouldn’t it be great if our lives worked like the refresh button on the computer? Whether it is our own change or walking with others in their change, you would just press a button and life automatically reloads and updates to the current times and needs. 

And these days have led us all into various feelings. Are you or someone you know:

• Feeling unsettled? 
• Angry about the way things are?
• Frustrated with a relationship or circumstances? 
• Wish you could quit your job or a relationship?
• Feeling sidelined for your age (young or old)? 

Often such moments in our personal story or even in historic times, such as this COVID experience, are tilling the soil of our lives. It is loosening us in our usual patterns of living. 

And it is not just the external affecting us. It also works on our external, revealing what we really think, both good and bad. 

That tilling creates moments. Moments that can make us ready to change. 

Is God Inviting You to Change? 

For some of us, we can’t imagine much more change. “I’ve had enough change.” We have been experiencing uncomfortable, even historic, days but there is a strong sense that God is also working uniquely in each of our lives in this time. 

But there is a strong sense that God is also working uniquely in each of our lives in this time.

We know God is King over all and His care is sustaining things, even bringing good in the midst of it. These are God’s characteristics of sovereignty and providence. And this is where we begin to live our theology, not just in actions but also how we think.

What do these characteristics mean for you? God has been at work in this time in your life in unique ways. 

Have you seen it? Heard Him anew? Found His comfort supporting you? 

Why is Change Hard? A Key Idea for How to Change 

At the risk of stating the obvious, change is hard. 

But let me expand: We like to stay in the rhythm that has already been set. Things like to stay in sameness. This is the idea in systems, including family systems, of homeostasis. (Read another application of family systems here.) That is to say whether it is a system like a group of people or even how your life works each day, that system seeks to stay in the rhythm that’s developed. 

This adjustment is felt in uncomfortable ways but without that discomfort, change can’t happen. Change is discomfort. 

Hiking has a helpful analogy. If you go hiking, you find that there is a well-worn part know as the trail or path where the grass is gone. The edges, while worn, are not quite as much. And out a little further, if you try to go off that trail, you quickly find yourself in weeds, brambles, bushes, and even a poison ivy or two. It is much harder!

Change is like blazing a new trail. In order to break the “sameness” of the trail, you will have tedious work, sweating, being sore, and other discomforts. 

It is the same with our life. And while this “sameness” can be a helpful, efficient tool or help, it can also be a problem. 

And while this “sameness” can be a helpful, efficient tool or help, it can also be a problem. 

We live a rhythm, making a path, wearing it down. The result: it works for us. And we can do it on autopilot without much thought. Some of the habits, ways of thinking, or schedules of life are good. Others are not. But times such as these loosen us for God’s forming-to-the-image-of-Christ change in us as a church, family, or marriage.

But times such as these loosen us for God’s forming-to-the-image-of-Christ change in us as a church, family, or marriage.

Blazing a New Trail for Your Life 

If we can deal with the difficult thoughts and feelings that rise In the midst of the discomfort, we can begin to see the way to blaze a new trail in our lives. 

In the midst of Revelation, Jesus says “Behold, I am making all things new.” The story of Jesus is one of coming into lives and disrupting the rhythm, the well-worn path, bringing something new. Whether Paul on his way to persecute more Christians or a possessed person living his life, Jesus came into their lives and they were undone in some way. 

The story of Jesus is one of coming into lives and disrupting the rhythm, the well-worn path, bringing something new.

Did it feel good? In most cases, not right away. 

Was it ultimately for the best? Yes!

Do you even get to see that it was good (at least sometimes)? Not always but there are times!

In God’s good hands, this time has offered us an opportunity to taste of new things. It is a chance where God pushes the refresh button.

A loosening of where we have been. 

An awakening that there maybe more. 

Some of it has come pleasantly and easily. Other pieces have come through pain that is still real. But this time has impacted our view of God, ourselves, relationships, loving our neighbor, and many others. 

In order to change, there will always be stress. Going on unprepared trails is always hard. But this time of our lives has loosened us for change to follow Jesus into new things.  

God is with you and bringing all things to completion in your life (Philippians 1:6). 

Be strong. Be courageous. He is making all things new!