The next several weeks of blogs will be based on our most recent animated reading. To see the full text of the poem or watch the video, click here.
Change me O Lord, every part …
Just as in the voting booth so too in our personal faith … the greatest force for change begins not at the highest levels of leadership but in the hearts of ordinary people. When national change is needed we tend to look to heroes and leaders while often failing to take serious the incredible potential for change we already carry within us. The kind of change our country needs will not occur until—as Christ followers—we first become desperate for God to change us.
For me, it was the most distinct moment of my life. The truth hit me like a sledge hammer to the chest—I was incapable of becoming the person I needed to be. On that day I finally saw my brokenness for what it was. Something shifted in the depths of my heart from merely sighing, “I wish God would change me” to desperately crying, “O God, change me—every part!”
It doesn’t even look spectacular—greater love for God, increased compassion for others, and new hunger to read Scripture. These seemingly meager beginnings are actually the seeds of transformation. However, such change must be preceded by brokenness for only then will we finally trust God to do in us what we never could ourselves. But a single seed dies alone.
We must link arms with others in our churches because together these small changes inside us can become a massive movement through us for a revolution of compassion in our land. Where there is hatred, forgiveness begins with us. And where there is fear, we must show love and courage. The church is and has always been the greatest force for change in our world. As Christians, God has called all of us to take personal responsibility for the healing of our nation.
Don’t be mistaken—Christian faith is no private affair. The more desperate our faith the more public our love for God and neighbor. We are called to live like Christ and, clearly, his example of faith was public. Such faith is contagious because it’s authentic and transforming. Because of this, it has a way of quickly spreading from the church house, to the school house, to the courthouse, and every other social arena between and beyond.
Does this seem unbelievable? It shouldn’t because it has happened time and again throughout history. They’re called periods of revival and renewal where vibrant faith in the church spilled out in radical acts of love and good works into the public spheres of society. Why not once again? Next week we talk about the need for an awakening of faith.
What Do You Think?
What do you think it means that Christian faith is no private affair? What might your community look like if authentic Christian faith went viral?
