Tip of My Iceberg

She’s had Shirley Temple curls since birth. They’ve been a blessing and a bane to her existence.

Sloane has had the most incredible hair; curls are what many women want, pay large sums of money to get if their hair is pin straight, or find hair extensions to add what one doesn’t have.

The challenge has always been combing out the curls. Curls can snag, snarl, be rebellious at the introduction of a comb or brush. There’s a certain beauty in the wildness of it all.

But having something others want too often makes it less appealing to the individual. We want what we don’t have. Sloane wanted straight hair.

Her mom accommodated her desire. She got a haircut, and the stylist straightened her hair.

“Do you think the kids at school will recognize me?” Her response was one of sheer delight. The change in her appearance made her feel special, new, different.

Reality? To maintain straight locks she’d have to work a long time after every shampoo to straighten it once again. Her hair wants to do what it has always done–curl.

We’re all a bit like that prone-to-curl hair. We have ways of acting that come naturally to us, things we’ve always done because we’ve always done them. We default to such behavior–we act with what we’ve been comfortable doing. To change our behavior takes effort.

Jesus has said He will help us change to become all He knows we can be. It’s not keeping a list of rules or following a protocol; it’s all about trusting Him to make the changes in us that we can’t sustain on our own.

“This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun! And all of this is a gift from God, who brought us back to Himself through Christ.” 2 Corinthians 5:17-18a

Why can we possibly believe that? What we know is that people let us down all the time. God is different.

“God is not a man, so He does not lie. He is not human, so He does not change His mind. Has He ever spoken and failed to act? Has He ever promised and not carried it through?” Numbers 23:19

Sloane longs for her hair to be straight, but she’s not yet willing to do the work to make it that way.

We have a tendency to mess things up–all of us. “Can a leopard take away its spots? Neither can you start doing good, for you have always done evil.” Jeremiah 13:23b.

We’re not all bad, but everyone struggles with doing all the good and right things we want to do. It’s on God to give us what we need to change–and He does that in Jesus, who gave His life for us, paying a price for our wrongdoings with His own life.

Working at being good is exhausting. It’s better to allow God to change us from the inside out instead of being constantly disappointed with our failures.

What do you want to change in your life?