Do we change?

My friend Corey Beals has said to me a few times that we overestimate what we can accomplish in a year, and we underestimate what we can accomplish in five years. I’ve been thinking this week about the pace of change.

Last Saturday, I took my daughter to a writer’s workshop down at Portland State. I haven’t been there for years and years, and my mind started going back to high school. We used to go to Portland State’s library for our research papers.

When I walked into the student union building, I had a flashback. My junior year, the state speech tournament was held at Portland State, and I was staring at the exact spot where I had been 20 years before. There’s a picture in my yearbook of about 10 of us on the team, celebrating our second place finish.

I dug out the yearbook, and then I did some more digging. I searched on Google for the names of some of my friends in the picture. I found five of them online; and it made it crystal clear that in 20 years, many things DO change…and many things stay the same.

My own changes in those 20 years are pretty similar to those in my friends’ lives.

20 years ago, I was just beginning to consider going into the ministry. I don’t think it would surprise any of my friends in the picture to know what I do today. But since that time, I’ve also married someone I didn’t even know then, I’ve become dad to three girls, I’ve learned to play the guitar, I’ve lived in California and Idaho, and I’ve learned to love Thai food.

Over decades, change really does happen. Some things stay the same, and some things change dramatically. Looking over a long period of time gives perspective, and that perspective sometimes helps us give ourselves more grace…and sometimes challenges the big directions of our lives.

Most of us find big change to be a little slow.

I think we feel a little guilty about it. Character change takes a long time, and I think we expect to change more quickly.

What are some of the factors you can think of that raise our expectations for quick change? Help me out with that. [ASK]

Lots of things push us to expect change quickly. Many times we expect God’s change in our lives to happen more quickly than it does.

But I wonder how much Corey’s saying is true in our spiritual lives? I wonder if we overestimate how much we can change spiritually in a year…but underestimate how much God can do in our lives in five?

Let’s think about Jesus and the disciples.

We can look at Jesus one way, and say, “Wow! Jesus was pretty slow in his change!” He spent at least 30 years without making much of a dent on the world at all. He walked around Palestine with 12 guys for years, and it took that long before anybody in power really noticed and paid attention.

But the changes in that last week of Jesus’ life were pretty dramatic and pretty quick, if we just look at that. One Sunday, everyone’s cheering him as he comes to Jerusalem, but by Friday, he’s crucified and dead. Three days later, all heaven and earth is shaken and he’s alive again!

God changed the history of the world in seconds when Jesus came back to life. But it took Jesus’ faithful obedience every minute of his life to get there. In fact, it took all of history and time for God’s plan for our world to get to that point.

Take the disciples.

Years of following him around, years of Jesus telling them what he came to do and who he was, don’t seem to make much of a difference in the passage Jo read for us.

Jesus has to tell the disciples the same things he’s always told them. They’ve been afraid all day on that first Easter, and haven’t believed anyone that told them Jesus is alive. They just don’t seem to change, even after all this time.

Look, though, at this little ray of hope for us who feel like the disciples, who feel like change in our lives never seems to come.

Open your bibles to Luke 24: 44. [READ 44]

Now comes the word of hope! [READ v. 45]

Jesus opened their minds to understand things they had missed when they heard it before.

Anytime I feel depressed about my own denseness, reading about the disciples makes me feel better. I mean, come on: they had Jesus himself walking around with them for YEARS, teaching them the bible, and they still had no idea what God was doing through Jesus.

But there’s more than just the hope of the disciples being more clueless than me! There’s the hope of v. 45, that Jesus has the power to open our minds so that we truly can change how we see the world.

Have you had that experience? Have you had Jesus open your mind in such a way that you see something that’s very familiar in a completely new way? [ASK]

Each time someone shares their story, as Jennifer did today, we’re reminded that Jesus can bring new perspective.

Even after intense years with Jesus, the disciples can have their minds opened to new things that bring change. And change often begins with a change in our thinking.

Jesus helps them understand that his suffering and death and resurrection are all part of God’s plan to bring forgiveness to the world. It’s all part of bringing change, repentance, to the world! What finally brings the beginning of change to the disciples is new thinking, new understanding of the scriptures.

But, sometimes, a change in thinking isn’t enough.

We sometimes act like all that has to happen for things to change is to think differently. That’s important, but it’s not the end of the story.

I can illustrate this very, very simply. I completely and totally believe that I would be healthier, I would feel better, if I didn’t eat junk food and if I did exercise regularly. I believe it totally and completely!

But I still eat things I shouldn’t; I still eat more than I should; and I still exercise less than I should.

Change requires a change in our goals, in our thinking, in our relationship with God. But it isn’t finished with that. We need more. We need more, whether it’s something physical like eating and exercising, or whether it’s our character and our spiritual lives that are at stake.

Once again, Jesus and the disciples help us out.

[READ v. 46-49]

Jesus has opened their minds to the scriptures. He’s changed their thinking about what God’s up to. He’s clearly given them a goal and a mission: bring the good news of forgiveness to the world!

But he isn’t finished. He tells the disciples to wait-wait for power from God to give you strength.

Wait, wait, wait. So much of our lives with God seem to involve waiting. Waiting for God to make things clear to us. Waiting for God to empower us.

It takes work and effort to wait. And I wonder if our lack of effort in actively waiting on God is the reason we’re sometimes disappointed in the speed of change in our lives.

True and lasting change comes as we choose to follow Jesus, let him change our thinking, and let God give us the power to act and live differently.

It’s not as quick as we would like. It isn’t boiled down into an instant fix.

What’s my point? We can’t give up on change in our lives, we can’t take short cuts.

If, like we said throughout our journey in 1 John, if we want to live different lives, it will take time and effort. That’s part of what happens when our character must be changed.

We’ve got to actively wait. Not passively. Not waiting for the magic wand. Not expecting God to just fix us.

We’ve got to make the commitment to follow Jesus around for years and years, waiting for him to open our minds and change our goals. We’ve got to make the commitment to wait for God to empower us to do his mission, to bring forgiveness to the world.

We can’t overestimate what can be done in a year! Change takes time. That’s the word of hope.

But I also want to finish with a word of challenge.

I think we do underestimate what we can do in five years.

Remember our journey through the book of Acts? Where were these same disciples five years after Jesus was brought back to life?

These same disciples gained confidence. They went from 11 to thousands of people. Peter and John healed all kinds of people. The church spread throughout the known world.

What might God do in you and through you over the next five years, if you gave him your life? If we make the effort to listen and wait, to let God change us and empower us…the sky is the limit!