Change

Change.

The word itself sometimes makes us tense up or shudder.

We tend to think of change as something that is negative. But we all need to change. If it wasn’t for change we would all still be wearing diapers and laying on the floor. But even as a young child something inside us told us to get up and do something different—to change!

Oftentimes we think we need to change ourselves, when in reality what we really need to do is to change an action instead.

We are who we are—a child of God. We do not need to change that. 

What we need to change is things that are keeping us from reaching our full potential as a child of God.

If I am out hiking and get really thirsty, no amount of “changing” who I am or hoping that I can “change” will bring me relief from that thirst.  I must act to change that situation. In this case I need to find water. That action of finding water will then change my situation.

From a gospel of Jesus Christ sense part of change is repentance.

Russell M. Nelson, President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints said, “The word for repentance in the Greek New Testament is metanoeo. The prefix meta-means “change.” The suffice-noeo related to Greek words that mean mind, knowledge, spirit, and breath. Thus, when Jesus asks you and me to “repent”, He is inviting us to change our mind, our knowledge, our spirit–even the way we breathe.” (April 2019)

So repentance is really changing an action that we had been doing that we shouldn’t (or should be doing that we weren’t) into a better action.

Change is good. Making changes to our habits and actions gives us the opportunity to do better, achieve more, grow, develop, and eventually reach our full potential.

In Mosiah 5:7 (in the Book of Mormon) it says “And now, because of the covenant which ye have made ye shall be called the children of Christ, his sons, and his daughters; for behold, this day he hath spiritually begotten you; for ye say that your hearts are changed through faith on his name; therefore, ye are born of him and have become his sons and his daughters.

President Nelson said, “When we choose to repent we choose to change.”

Change is a choice we all have to make. 

What can we change today that will help us be a better person tomorrow, a better child of God, a better servant to others around us, a better husband, wife, daughter, or son?

Don’t change who you are, but change something you are doing to become more than you now are.

And make God and Jesus Christ part of that change.

The Lord works from the inside out. The world works from the outside in. The world would take people out of the slums. Christ would take the slums out of people, and then they would take themselves out of the slums. The world would mold men by changing their environment. Christ changes men, who then change their environment. The world would shape human behavior, but Christ can change human nature. 

Ezra Taft BEnson