Why is change so hard? Let us be honest: change is hard. We are all creatures of habit, and change is upsetting. Even when change is difficult, the outcome can be excellent. One needs to look no further than the Butterfly.
The Butterfly starts as an egg and hatches into a caterpillar. The caterpillar spends all of this stage with a veracious appetite. After time goes by, the caterpillar becomes a chrysalis. Then, after this stage is complete, a stunning butterfly emerges.
Are any of these stages easy? The caterpillar molts five times during this stage. While the chrysalis stage occurs, the caterpillar breaks down. It rearranges its structure, growing a new body, legs, and wings. All the changes that occur so a beautiful butterfly can emerge are intense. The change took work.
The other day, I got a message that I wanted to share. This woman described a man in her life and told me how this guy was to her.
“I went to school with a kid who I tried hard to avoid every day for four years. It’s not that there was really anything wrong with the kid or that the kid did anything directly to me, but the kid was just mean. The only person this individual cared about was himself.
He constantly sought attention, usually in a negative way, by pointing out the shortcomings of others. Sometimes he said mean things, and I’m talking about really mean things, directly to another person or just near enough for the other person to overhear.
This individual had no respect for anyone else and was uncomfortable to be around. We grew up in a small town, so our paths crossed a lot, and we “socialized” (a.k.a. partied) with all the same people all the time, so I was forced to spend more time with this kid than I really wanted.
What I learned was that I needed to steer clear because I could become a target at any time. No one was safe. And it’s definitely not that I was in any way perfect all the time, either. We were all young and invincible and were fighting our way to the top. What we really wanted was just to be accepted, but this kid made me, and probably others, feel like we’d never be good enough or smart enough or pretty enough or enough of anything really, so I just stayed out of the way as much as I possibly could.”
The person this poor woman is describing is me. I can not tell you how much it hurts my heart to admit this, but she accurately describes me. I WAS this person. I was a hurt person hurting others. My life desperately needed transformation, and the only one who could do that to my hurting heart was Jesus Christ.
This Sunday, we will look at the lives that were transformed by the same God who changed me, Jesus Christ. The transformation was not fast or easy, but what Jesus did with me is beautiful, and guess what? He wants to transform you, too! Join us Sunday at 9:30 AM.
In Him,
Pastor Chris