Change...by Grace through Faith

In dealing with stress, identifying the things that stress you and making changes is important if you don't want to be miserable and potentially take years off your life. This is not as easy as it sounds. Making changes in my life requires something of me. I typically have to face my greatest fears to make real, lasting changes. It's easy to talk about what I need to do or just throw a pity party about how I am struggling at times.

I think about Abraham and how God called him out of Ur in Genesis 12. It couldn't have been easy for Abraham to just leave his home, not knowing for sure what was ahead of him. The same with Saul in 1 Samuel 9-10. He was told by Samuel that he had been chosen to become the first king of Israel. Although being king sounds great, it required Saul to forfeit what was familiar and comfortable to him for the unknown challenges of leading a nation. This is a man who was taller than most other men, strong, and apparently good looking, and yet he "hid himself among the baggage" (1 Samuel 10:22) when Samuel was attempting to introduce him as the first king to the people. Even when there was promise of a great position, change was not something Saul embraced because it was hard to face his fears of failure and not being accepted by others (among other fears that I am sure were present with him). For me, even when there is potential for freedom from some anxiety-provoking situation or perception of my present situation, I hesitate to leap forward. Will I make things worse? Will I leave something behind that I will miss? Will God really follow through on giving me what I need every step of the way? Has God really made me in such a way that I actually have what it takes to do this?        

In James 2:14-17, James talks about faith being dead if it is not followed by action. Change requires putting action to faith. One must follow through on what that person says he or she believes in order for forward progress to occur. I want to stress something here, though. We must be careful that we don't approach this backwards. This is not something we drum up ourselves. Back to the title of this blog, based on Ephesians 2:8-9, we walk by Grace through Faith. We are not to do things to prove our faith or to earn grace, but our actions are still a vital part of the whole thing. It's the evidence that the Grace through Faith is at work. The actions (or good works) follow the faith. Therefore, change in our lives can be a great piece of evidence that we are living by Grace through Faith. When there is no change, and we become sluggish or motionless, we need to check our hearts and see how we might not be trusting the Lord with certain things in our lives.