I tried my best to just change one part, but it seems I have to change the whole unit out, which would be OK but I really didn’t want to have to access the attic and deal with all the insulation mess, plus, I really don’t know what I’m doing. So, after tearing everything apart and giving it a thorough cleaning, I put the same old unit back in place. How frustrating is that?

The more I thought about it, though, the more I realized that’s just like our lives. When we come to Christ, all is forgiven and His Spirit lives inside us. But, nothing is the same. We can’t just change out a new model for the old, because everything has changed. I wanted to leave the old fan housing attached to the rafters, but God wants to even change out my spiritual housing. That’s painful, takes time, and creates a lot of frustration is in us. But that’s what growth is.

How is God changing you right now?

We don’t like change, yet we spend money and time because we like change. Its my expectation that I’ll never have to paint that room again in my lifetime. We create change so we never have to change it again. Isn’t that an interesting contrast.

What have you recently changed that you never want to change again?

One of our members is a Christian Counselor and he began pressing us for programs that really work in the lives of these people who live in perpetual poverty. Another leader spoke up and said, “I think you’re looking for a program that works with them, and there isn’t one. If a person doesn’t want to change, you can’t change them. It takes one-on-one intensive care.” And he shared a success story of a woman that took 2 years to develop.

And I shared that the only thing that changes people is a changed mind, and that’s where ministers come in, and we have our job cut out for us.

What experience do you have working with people with a poverty mentality.

Finally, as an old man, he wrote out his last wishes. “I’ve been the butt of jokes all my life,” he said, “I’ll not have people making fun of me after I’m gone.” He instructed that his tombstone not bear his name.

After his death, people noticed the large blank stone in the cemetery and said, “That’s odd.”

We can do whatever we choose to get people to do what they should, but they are only going to do what is natural. The only way to change someone’s nature is for them to be born again. And that changes everything.

“But the plane that carried us out last year was exactly like this one,” the hunters protested. “The horsepower was the same, the weather was similar, and we had six elk then.”

Hearing this, the pilot reluctantly agreed to try. They loaded up and took off, but sure enough, there was insufficient power to climb out of the valley with all that weight, and they crashed. As they stumbled from the wreckage, one hunter asked the other if he knew where they were.

“Well, I’m not sure,” replied the second, “but I think we’re about two miles from where we crashed last year.”

Doing the same thing again but expecting a different result is the definition of insanity. If you want a different result, you have to do something different. Let’s all wise up.

On a lighter note, Ken Gaub says it like this: “If you continue to think like you always thought, you’ll always get what you always got!”

Ready or not, your life will change!

John D. Rockefeller had become the world’s only billionaire. But he was a miserable man who couldn’t sleep, had no one who loved him, and who needed bodyguards for his safety.

Then at age 53 he was stricken with a rare disease. He lost all his hair, and his body became thin and shrunken. He was given a year or so to live.

Faced with the reality of death, Rockefeller started thinking about eternal issues, and suddenly began to change. He gave away his money to help churches and the poor. He established the Rockefeller Foundation, which has underwritten critical health research. Today, we don’t remember him for his wealth, we remember him for his generosity.

His health improved, and contrary to the doctor’s prediction, he lived to be 98. Don’t tell me people can’t change.

Change is never easy. It always takes more work and costs more money than just keeping things the same. But today Anita has a light that doesn’t buzz or have a light cover that falls off into her dishwater. It was worth it in the end. Change was good, because if Mama ain’t happy, ain’t nobody happy!

Do you have to change something today? Change is good.

Well that didn’t satisfy the daughter, so she went to Grandma to find out. But her grandmother had the same rationale. The truth had to rest with the great-grandmother. Fortunately, the originator of the tradition was still living and alert. Her reason? When she was cooking for her family, she didn’t have a pan big enough for most hams. Her remedy was to dock the ends of the ham until it was short enough to fit!

So the mystery of the abbreviated ham was solved. Will the young girl get a bigger pan or follow the tradition? What would you do?

Sometimes I think the church is using the same antiquated strategy: keep doing spiritual battle the same way with the same outdated weapons. Is it any wonder Satan seems the be winning here in America? It reminds me of the director of the US Patent office back in the 1830s who suggested the patent office be closed because everything that could be invented had already been invented. And its not the church’s fault because the church is people! Its time we all awoke to the challenge that we are the ones who need to change.