How to Change
by Grace Bull
Whenever I go to an airport, I remember a story I heard an Ellel speaker tell years ago. He described how he was standing in line at the check-in desk at a busy airport. Suddenly he felt a sharp pain in his right heel. The woman behind him had accidentally pushed her heavy luggage trolley into his foot. She was very apologetic, “Oh, I’m SO sorry!” He smiled and told her not to worry about it.
A few minutes later he felt an even bigger pain in the same place. He turned around to see that it was the same woman who had run into him again with her trolley. “Oh, I’m so sorry,” she said, “It was an accident. I’m really sorry.” “OK,” he grunted, in a slightly less friendly manner than before.
Only a few minutes later, she ran her trolley hard into his heel a third time. “Sorry! Sorry! I’m so sorry,” she said. Gathering all his patience, he replied, “I don’t want you to be sorry. I want you to stop doing it!”
That is such a good illustration of the difference between remorse (being sorry) and repentance (changing what we do).
If we keep doing the same harmful things, and keep telling God how sorry we are, I think He is saying the same to us: “I don’t want you to be sorry. I want you to stop doing it.”
Repentance literally means a change of thinking which leads to a transformation in behaviour or lifestyle. When we see and understand something in a different way, we start to think differently and that changes our behaviour. We don’t change by being sorry. We change by starting to think completely differently.
Fortunately for all of us, God doesn’t expect us to fix ourselves alone. He gives us His Holy Spirit to help us in everything. So, if I find I need to repent of something, I ask God to help me to think differently about the thing. I ask Him to help me see the issue the way He sees it. That is how we repent and truly change from the inside out.
If a specific matter has come into your mind as you read this Seed, why not ask God to help you to think about it differently? Changed thoughts and attitudes lead to changed actions - and much rejoicing.
Grace Bull is a member of the Ellel Ministries team, working in course development and the support of Ellel centres worldwide, having previously been a full-time GP (family doctor) for 15 years. Her passion is relationship with God and doing anything that will help other people to find that close relationship too.
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