Change in most instances is a difficult thing; especially when it deals with changing ourselves or our own behaviors.

I’m the type of person that when I notice an area I could use improvement in, I buckle-up for the ride and give 120% of myself into doing whatever is necessary to accomplish the goal.

One thing I have noticed however is that when it comes to spiritual matters, personal effort is most often times less than adequate for achieving the desired end result. I can clearly remember many scenarios where I have tried to change myself to behave more in-line with what I know to be the right thing as stated in the Bible, and every time I ended up failing, whether it took an hour or a year, at the end of it I had proven to be incapable of maintaining the change, my own will and power just simply wasn’t enough.

This fact was a source of great frustration to me for a very long time until I finally learned a truth that changed my entire way of thinking… and it was right in-front of my face the entire time, in John 14:13-14:

“And whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son.
If ye shall ask any thing in my name, I will do it.”

Then it occurred to me, that in all my own trying, in all my human effort, I had never stopped to ask the Lord for the strength to change. I was so caught up in my own efforts that I never considered that I had access to a power far greater than myself. The situation was analogous to trying to start a campfire by rubbing two sticks together while all the while having a book of matches or a lighter in your pocket. It’s just plain foolish and unnecessarily aggravating.

Yet even in this I still made one mistake… I was asking God for the strength to change, which seemed pretty clever in my own mind, but I was still failing to notice one more detail… Jesus did not say “Ask anything in My Name, and I will give you the strength to do it”.

Instead Jesus said “Ask anything in my Name, and I will do it.” — that’s actually an entire world of difference apart! One is asking God for extra strength so that you can try to do something yourself, and the other is just asking Him and trusting that He will do it as He promised He would.

Eventually I had to come to the realization, that the best option is the latter of the two. Ask Him, and let Him do it as He said.

The lesson in this is when we are faced with tough change that we can not seem to master on our own, tap into the source of power which we have access to through Jesus; Ask Him, and we shall receive in abundance. Remember that He is the Vine, and we are the branches.