Lord, Change Me

Lord, Change Me

Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God’s will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect. Romans 12:2

I remember one of the times I prayed the life-changing prayer “Lord, change me!” To say it was a stressful time is an understatement. My husband, Holmes, was in a dead-end job and depressed (and I was angry and frustrated with him underneath my veneer of politeness). Our twenty-year-old daughter was living with us, and she was struggling with some personal problems of her own.

My tendency was to think, If Holmes were just happier and less depressed; if only he could get a better job so we’d have more income and I wouldn’t have to work double to try to make ends meet; if only Ali could get in a better place and not be so down. Then everything would be okay, right? Wrong. I encouraged my husband, gave our daughter unwelcome advice, tried to cheer both of them up, and prayed harder that they would change. Then one day it hit me: I couldn’t change them at all. I could only be willing to work on my issues and ask God to change me.

Today’s verse shed much light: Be transformed (that is, changed) by “changing the way you think.” The prayer I prayed that day and many other days following led to my going to counseling, joining a support group of women dealing with family-of-origin issues, and asking over and over again, “Lord, change me—not my husband, not my daughter, not our situation, but me, from the inside out.”

The results of that prayer and the long journey that followed have been painful at certain points, but they have definitely been worth it. And as I got my focus off my dear ones’ problems and asked God to change my heart, God worked faithfully and steadily in their lives as well, for he works within each of us who belong to him, to cause us to desire to do what pleases him.

Would you, too, pray this powerful, life-changing prayer and mean it?

—CHERI

Lord, change me—not my husband or my friend who’s being difficult, not my children, my grumpy neighbor, or my boss. Please change me from the inside out.

Change, indeed, is painful, yet ever needful; and if memory have its force and worth, so also has hope.

—THOMAS CARLYLE (1795–1881), SCOTTISH ESSAYIST AND HISTORIAN