I had a conversation recently with a guy here in prison about how many inmates hear something relevant to their lives, nod their head in affirmation, verbally agree, and then go their way making absolutely no changes in their behaviors. He was frustrated by the complacency around us. Here we are, broken people we are sometimes taught what needs to change in our lives, and for many those changes never happen.
The ironic thing is that this phenomenon is not isolated to criminal populations. How many people attend seminars, or retreats and get excited about what they hear, but never apply it to their lives? How many people sit in church every week silencing, for a moment, their guilty consciences, but fail to apply the truths they hear to their lives? How many millions of people pay money to have a professional tell them what they need to change (doctors, counselors, life coaches, etc.) only to never make the changes?
Why are so many people content to have their ears tickled for a time without yielding any lasting effect on their lives? Whether in prison or out, we are at a point in our lives that is a result of a collection of choices in our past and so, we often can't make the positive changes in our lives immediately. We can only make these positive changes slowly as an accumulation of small positive choices. Maybe for some if it can't be done overnight it's not worth the effort. And so they continue to behave badly, make more poor choices, and bear the fruit that comes with these decisions.
I'm tired of bearing bad fruit in my life. I refuse to stay stuck in the rut of poor choices. Yeah, it takes work, but I want my choices to bear good fruit. I want my children to be proud of me, my parents to be proud of me, and most of all I want my choices to finally reflect my identity as a child of God. It's time to put truth to work in our lives. Are you up for it?
