Why Change Doesn’t Stick

The idea of starting the new year with a “clean slate” and a fresh sense of hope is a beautiful concept, but so many of us dread the new year, its call to change, and the failure that seems imminent. But as followers of Jesus, changing for the better is our birthright!

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• Why Change Doesn’t Stick – Audio
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So, why is it hard to change our behaviors, our thoughts, and our habits?

Here are two factors that may contribute:
1. We forget our worth; and
2. We forget we are forgiven

Part 1: We forget our worth.
Over a decade ago, I volunteered in a correctional facility for women and taught a creative writing class. After reflecting on major life events, they wrote their own autobiographies. Reading about their trauma, addiction, and loss haunted me, but perhaps the hardest thing to read was their absence of self-worth.

When I heard the story of a young woman named “Diamond” I told her how well her name suited her: a jewel of rare beauty and value was produced in extreme conditions. Diamond’s eyes filled with tears.

Many of these women didn’t know or didn’t believe or couldn’t believe that they were precious.

As image bearers of God – the Imago Dei mentioned in Genesis 1:27 – every human being has intrinsic, eternal, and matchless worth. Even if our life experiences are different than those of the women at the correctional facility, we are all tempted to question our worth. But our perspective doesn’t make it more or less true – this reality of our worth stands with or without our assent. And it’s not diminished because it applies to everyone – it’s personal.

My conversations with the incarcerated women made me wonder if a sense of worth is a necessary prerequisite to change. In other words, maybe we have to know our value to (1) admit our full potential and then to (2) recognize how we need to change.

And how can we get the truth of our value lodged deep within? It does take intentionality, but it isn’t striving. It’s the discipline of rehearsing the truth, and choosing what God says over how we feel. It’s remembering that we need a Savior (and there is still work to be done in us!) but above all, our Savior finds us worthy of the ultimate sacrifice.

Part 2: We forget we are forgiven.
Recently, I was sitting in a class with third-graders, listening to my friend Amy teach with a world globe under her arm.

She choked up, tearful, at this verse:

As far as the east is from the west,
so far has he removed our transgressions from us. – Psalm 103:2, NIV

In my mind, the visual that had always accompanied this verse was a flattened world map. I imagined God taking our sinfulness all 46 inches to the other side of the glossy paper.

But that day, Amy placed her finger on the globe and moved it eastward. Her circumnavigation in that direction was endless.

She then moved her finger in the opposite direction, westward. Again, a direction without end.

How far is the east from the west? It’s an infinite, immeasurable distance!

Did you hear that? Do you believe it? Our record isn’t hanging over our heads. Our sins aren’t piled up on our shoulders. If you’re desperate for the lightness of freedom and cleanness of righteousness, it is yours in Christ.

When we start from a place of knowing our worth and knowing we are forgiven, then we can experience grace and hope as we try to make changes in our lives. Grace means that we aren’t undone when the sought-after change isn’t perfect and immediate. We need God’s grace in every aspect of our lives and He delights to extend it to us. Hope means that we don’t slide into despair when we slip up because we know our God is a God of hope and He’s always at work.

So, friends, let’s dream and make resolutions for positive change in 2025 – but let’s do it all from a place of embracing our God-given worth and our God-given forgiveness. Cheers!