I recently celebrated a birthday, and as the day drew close, I began to feel like my age had caught up to me, and I was not too fond of the changes that came with age. In other words, the enemy bothered me and made me feel old. They say that age is nothing but a number, but I noticed the wrong numbers when I looked in the mirror. There were more wrinkles, more weight, and less energy, speed, and strength. As I prayed out to God and asked Him to help me accept these changes more graciously, God helped me understand that change is good and not harmful.
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God lovingly helped me understand that the problem was I was looking at my changes the way the enemy wanted me to see them. The enemy always wants me to see everything as a loss. He works overtime to make me feel like I have lost my beauty, youth, strength, and anything else that sounds negative.
The enemy wants each of us to feel bad, down, and depressed, and one of his go-to weapons is to try to convince us that we have missed out on God’s goodness. If the enemy can cause us to believe that we are too late, defeated, or not enough, he thinks we will give up and stop trying, but God will not let that happen.
Understanding Change From God’s Perspective
God sees change differently than the world sees it, and He wants us to see it as He does. If we understand everything from His perspective, we will automatically start thinking of change more positively. As I pondered the idea of change as a Christian, God began to show me that there is beauty in change when we look at it His way.
Instead of change, meaning that we pine over what we have lost, we must begin to look at it in a way that causes us to examine what we have gained, or more precisely, we must evaluate whether we have evolved or become better.
In response to my prayer, God challenged me to look at my life, acknowledging that I am changing and will continue to change, but He caused me to ask myself whether or not I am evolving. I pray that I can convey all of what God taught me in a way that is helpful to others. We must individually answer whether we are evolving, no matter how old we are. The truth is, it would be a shame to change without becoming better.
Change Means We Are Evolving and Maturing
God clarifies that He wants us to commit to lasting change where we develop from baby Christians to more mature ones. If change means maturing, this should be a lifelong process. To remain stuck in any way would mean that we are not allowing God to make us more like Jesus.
We all start as babes in Christ. When we are babies, we are fed milk to grow (1 Peter 2:2). We cannot understand some things as a baby Christian, but we can more easily understand them when we mature. Understandably, we do some things when we are children, but as adults, we should put away childish things (1 Corinthians 13:11 KJV).
Looking at change from God’s perspective, we realize that change is desirable because it is equivalent to becoming more like Jesus and growing into our predetermined purpose and calling. Therefore, rather than dwell on feeling pessimistic about our dwindling youth, we should thank and praise God for the changes in our lives, knowing that He has blessed us with good things and the future He has for us is still full of many more blessings (Jeremiah 29:11 KJV).
Change Your Thinking and What You Value
All change starts in our minds (Romans 12:2). To change for the better means that we must correct the way we see ourselves, but to do that, we need to change how we measure ourselves and what we value in life. As we live in this earthly world full of darkness, if we are not careful, we can easily fall prey to loving only what the enemy does: worldly possessions and vanity.
When I was younger, I thought that success in my life was equivalent to a big house and a fancy, expensive car. I believed that having a big home and an expensive car would prove I had arrived. If this were my measuring stick, the enemy could use that against me to cause me to feel bad because I come up short. The same thing will happen if I value youth over maturity in Christ.
The Bible reminds us that we should store up Heavenly treasures rather than earthly ones (Matthew 6:19-20 ESV). What holds a special place in our hearts is what we value. As we mature in Christ, our relationship with Him should take center stage, and then we will find that what we want is what He wants for us.
Earthly and material things lose their shine in the light of Jesus. In the 9th chapter of Acts, we find a Biblical example of change that occurs in the life of Saul. Saul was forever changed when he met Jesus on the road to Damascus. He could no longer hold on to his worldly possessions, such as his education and theological teachings, because this encounter changed him forever and caused him to understand who Jesus was. We must all be willing to change for God as Saul did.
In another biblical example, a wealthy person was not willing to change. He was a rich young ruler who had it all together, at least from worldly standards, in that he had great wealth (Matthew 19:16–30). When the young ruler came to Jesus, he asked Jesus what he needed to do to have eternal life. When Jesus told him to keep the commandments, the rich ruler stated that he had already done that and had kept the commandments from his youth. He asked Jesus what else he needed to do, and he was not happy with Jesus’ response.
Jesus challenged the young ruler to continue changing and becoming perfect by selling his possessions and following Jesus, but the young ruler was unwilling. The wealthy man could not let go of what he held dear. God wants to know that we are willing to walk away from materialistic ideals and the comforts of what is familiar to us and that we will be ready to trust His plan. God also wants to know that we are willing to keep growing and changing.
A Prayer to Help Embrace Change
God can use someone old or young, and the Bible tells us that there is a season for everything. As we live life as Christians, we want our lives to be pleasing to God at every stage and season, which will require us to change and perfect our lives as He deems them.
It is impossible to change ourselves, and we do not have to. Jesus will help us to become more like Him, but we must respond to His leading. Jesus often calls us to let go of what we think, get up, take up our bed, and walk (John 5:8). He commands us to think differently and not stay stuck.
Ultimately, what is important is not our age but our willingness to allow God’s Spirit to lead us and help us see change correctly. Let’s pray and ask God to help us learn to embrace change more positively.
So thankful I found your blog…I needed this message, for I am also feeling the effects of age. You always have the perfect words with the perfect message.
Your words are encouraging and so appreciated. There are times when the enemy tries to convince me that “no one reads anymore,” but just knowing that there is one person who was blessed by my blog post means a lot. God bless you and keep you! Your comment brought me much joy today!
My beloved thank you so much for this prayer about change and accepting change through the spirit of God. 🥰
I am so happy to hear it was a blessing to you. Our God is good! We just have to keep remembering that!