From Complacency to Change

It's been a while, I know...and, when it hasn't been a while, posts have been sporadic, at best. Which is one indication of my summer growth, I'm afraid.



See, sometimes in the summers I grow complacent. I mean, it's not like I'm on campus surrounded by other people who are just as crazy as I am--indeed, some are even crazier, believe it or not. In the summertime, I'm at home where it's comfortable and where I've known everyone for pretty much my entire life. There's not much challenge to living at home, and I therefore forget that there should be a challenge at all.



But, if we're not challenged, then we're not changed. Shoot, we're not even motivated to change. And our lives are all the time in need of changing! If you don't need changing, then you're perfect and you're delusional. Congratulations. For the rest of us, if something in our lives doesn't change every so often, we become way too comfortable with where we are, and the desire to change wears off. If it's not broke, don't fix it, right? That's when we get stuck in a dangerous place called complacency. It's something like the walking dead, because you're missing out on so much that God wants to do in your life but you don't even realize it. You're missing the parade as it passes by because you didn't change what needed changing based on a challenge in or on your life.



Perhaps you find yourself in this complacent state; you don't see a need for change, because your life, though dull and/or meaningless, is at least easy. I reckon the best cure for such a disease is to find a challenge. Now, don't rush off just yet, and let me clarify: for real change, not just any challenge will do. I suggest that you search through the Bible for the sorts of challenges that will bring extended, if not lasting, results. It is rich with challenges for the Christian life. Again, I want to plug Dietrich Bonhoeffer's The Cost of Discipleship, because it, besides the Bible, is the most challenging book I have read--because of the Bible. The same man wrote another book which concerns the Christian community called Life Together. Also, a Brit named J. I. Packer has written a book called Knowing God which deals with God's nature and our relationship to Him; and, finally, a smart man named C. S. Lewis wrote several books about Christianity. I've read Mere Christianity and Surprised by Joy and found both to be thought-provoking and, yes, challenging. Finally, Pastor Steven Furtick has written about change and challenge a great deal on his blog, which is always a good read. I mention all of these authors and titles, in fact, because, for one, they use the Scriptures as their basis for arguement and explanation; and, secondly, I have been challenged by them at some point or another--again, simply because of the Bible. I offer them to you as suggestions for a starting point in your journey from complacency to changed life.