Change is hard

Posted 18 December 2012, 0 comments

By Nigel Varndell, Director of Church Partnerships From our Church team Follow @dr_nyj

How willing are we to make changes that affect the core of our lives?

 
Towards the end of the book of Acts, Paul tries to convince people about the truth of Jesus, but no one listens. His assessment, using the words of Isaiah, is that 'they have shut their eyes; so that they might not look with their eyes, and listen with their ears....' (Acts 28:27)

For Paul it was not that the argument cannot be won, but that the implications are so great that people will look the other way rather than act.

And that is as true now as it was in Paul's day. The change that the gospel demands is radical. 

At this time of year, we are told that we can donate £2 a month and that if we only have a minute spare then a simple mouse click will send an e-mail to an MP and make things better. Of course these are good things to do. These acts can - and do - make a huge difference for the poorest and most marginalised children. 

But God asks more of us still. He wants us to completely reverse our priorities so that others who are vulnerable - the runaway, the destitute asylum-seeking child and the neglected child - come to the centre of our world and our own selfish interests get pushed to edges to occupy the money we have left over and the minute we have spare.

GK Chesterton once said: 'The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult and left untried'.

That is why real change is so hard, because it is terrifying. 

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