we really want it to work out…

what makes this change of heart thing happen? 

these factors that we are going to look at are sort of like a recipe.  these are the ingredients that go into a change of heart. 

one of them is i experience pain.  it could be relational pain or physical pain or financial pain or emotional pain – all kinds of pain in life. 

none of us like to change.  we always anticipate – i don’t want to do that.  i’m more comfortable where i am.  but when the real pain of not changing gets greater than that anticipated change then we start thinking about, “maybe i need to make a change.”  it takes some pain sometimes to wake us up to the fact that we need to change.

the bible talks about this in 2 corinthians 7.10 (tlb), GOD sometimes uses sorrow in our lives to help us to turn away from sin and to seek eternal life. 

HE uses sorrow to help us turn away from what is destructive – sin – and to seek what is the greatest in our life – eternal life, life that is fulfilling.  human nature is that if we don’t feel pain we keep going in the same direction but we need sometimes to turn away in a different direction. 

this is true when you’re driving – especially guys.  when we’re driving we might get this little thought in the back of our mind that we might be going in the wrong direction, what do we tell ourselves?  not that we’re going in the wrong direction.  but this is the best direction.  this is the best way to get there. 

we sometimes will go two states out of the way before we’ll admit that maybe possibly this is the wrong direction.  but it takes a great deal of pain before we get to that point. 

why is that?  it’s human nature.  we want it to work out the way that we’re going.  we don’t want to waste the investment we put into it.  we don’t want to admit that we were wrong. 

just a thought from the front porch…