10 Things You Wish You Could Change About Your Life...

If I were to ask you right now, if there were ten things you could change about your life so far, maybe it's things about yourself, your situations, your path in life, etc., what might come to mind?

If we could look at that colander in the picture above and label each of those holes with a thing we wished we could change, I don't think it would be hard at all to give them those labels.

Consider a way of labeling them under these categories: infirmities, reproaches, needs, persecutions, and distresses. Now, those come from verse 9 of 2 Cor. 12:9-10), "And He said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness." Therefore most gladly I will rather boast in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in needs, in persecutions, in distresses, for Christ's sake. For when I am weak, then I am strong." Think about that.

WHAT MAKES A PERSON DELIGHT IN THEIR WEAKNESSES?! WHO IS SO ABSURD AS TO REJOICE IN THE THINGS THAT WE ALL WISH WE COULD CHANGE?!?! I'll tell you who--Christians who understand this area of life. It's so backwards that many pastors out there are still preaching that God wants us to be healthy and wealthy and comfortable because they simply don't get it. Do you? Let that question pierce you. Do you? Do you get it about how weakness is good?

"How could a loving God allow pain in the world?" Well, you'd have to go to Genesis when Adam and Eve sinned by eating the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil, the one thing they were forbidden to do. God cursed the ground and caused pain in childbearing for women because of it...let me just post the verses here while I'm at it.

14 Then the LORD God said to the serpent: Because you have done this, you are cursed more than any livestock and more than any wild animal. You will move on your belly and eat dust all the days of your life.
15 I will put hostility between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed. He will strike your head, and you will strike his heel.
16 He said to the woman: I will intensify your labor pains; you will bear children in anguish. Your desire will be for your husband, yet he will dominate you.
17 And He said to Adam, "Because you listened to your wife's voice and ate from the tree about which I commanded you, 'Do not eat from it': The ground is cursed because of you. You will eat from it by means of painful labor all the days of your life.
18 It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field.
19 You will eat bread by the sweat of your brow until you return to the ground, since you were taken from it. For you are dust, and you will return to dust."
(Gen 3:14-19 HCSB)

The question, once more, is "How could a loving God allow pain into the world?" The answer, in question format, is this: "How could a loving God NOT allow pain into the world?" Why is that the answer? Because pain and weakness draw man to God, and if God didn't allow that to happen, man would really never seek God or see a need for Him. God could never let a fallen world walk scott-free in their sin without giving them pain to realize their need. I need God--it's as simple as that. Nothing exists without Him; nothing thrives without Him; He is where our hearts desire to place their worship, but sin blinds that and we worship and serve things created things like people that we think are better than ourselves, or money, or idealistic circumstances, etc.

So, back to that colander picture at the top. For every hole, imagine it to be a weakness of some sort--somewhere that you come up short. Failure to obey God, overwhelming situations, grief, hard times, financially stressful times, etc. Bad jobs, bad bosses, bad coworkers, bad relationships, fall-outs with friends or family, childhood emotional scars, pain. We're like the colander because we wish that we didn't have those holes--that we were complete and lacking in no area. That we had reached a utopia on all levels and that we had no imperfections.

You want to know something? In this fallen world, God shows Himself no better to the world than through those holes we wish weren't there. He shows His grace best in our losses. He shows His strength best where we fail. He ALWAYS magnifies His perfection through those imperfections. Have you prayed to be more like Him? Maybe He's been answering your prayers all along. When we think wrongly about the grace of God, we only expect blue skies and pure bliss. When we think rightly about grace, those imperfections become places of joy rather than pain. God never allowed problems and imperfections in to make us feel miserable and depressed--He allowed them in to continually draw us to Himself, because we need Him and we're nothing without Him.

If you've never trusted in Christ as your Savior, I want you to think about all that you wished you could change in your life and how much you fail yourself and others in any given week. Those failures and imperfections are there to draw you to God, but if you never see that, you'll only look to find ways to ignore those problems, get depressed about them, get angry about them, or try to find ways to work so hard that you'll eventually be perfect by your own power. It'll never happen.

God gave problems to men the minute man sinned so that man wouldn't think he was above his need for God. "For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God," says Romans 3:23. Every human falls short of the glory of God--every human is greatly imperfect. You don't need better self-esteem; you need a better understanding of the way God made you. Grab those problems and make a trophy room out of them, because those are the things that magnify your need of God the best. When I'm weak, then I'm strong.

THE ROMANS ROAD

1. For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. (Rom 3:23)
2. For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Rom 6:23)
3. But God proves His own love for us in that while we were still sinners Christ died for us! (Rom 5:8)
4. If you confess with your mouth, "Jesus is Lord," and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. With the heart one believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth one confesses, resulting in salvation.
(Rom 10:9-10)
5. Therefore, since we have been declared righteous by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. (Rom 5:1)