Why don't we change?

I was on my way home from small group Sunday night thinking about the fact that making a change in just about anything is difficult. Careers, city in which you live, friends, schools, behaviors….whatever it is, change is not easy. I remember several years back hearing something like the following: “people are not willing to make change until the pain of their current situation outweighs the perceived pain of the change” – this was related to the sales process. I believe this relates to change in general.

In this case, I was thinking about change in behaviors. If you want to lose weight, you need to change your diet and put some effort into working out – or as I have been know to say “close your mouth and get on the treadmill.” If you want be more productive at work, you need to make some change to the little behaviors such as time management. But what about changes of a spiritual nature? What if we want to live the life that we are told about in John 10:10 – “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.” Do we continue going on living life as we always have expecting to magically have our life “to the full”? There’s a saying that “the definition of insanity is doing the same thing you’ve always done but expecting different results”. It is going to take change.

Why was I thinking about change coming back from small group? Because we are going through Francis Chan’s “Crazy Love” and he calls us to read and the DO something about it. So when the tough question is asked “how is your life different as a result of reading this chapter” – the common answer is, “it’s not”. Why is this?? Pride? Laziness? Fear? Self-sufficiency? Comfort?