The new year always feels ripe for new goals. A good time to make some positive life changes. After rereading Clayton Christensen’s testimony of the church I zeroed in on Clayton’s description of our lay church and how much that outsourcing benefits all of us as members. It gives us endless opportunities to serve as well as learn from each other.
As Clayton notes, there are times when we can learn something profound about the gospel from someone we might least expect to be enlightening us on a church topic.
Elder Christensen had that experience when he was serving as the bishop of the Boston area singles ward and a college sophomore was asked to speak on repentance. The young student made his key point stating the following: “We often view repentance as a slow process. It isn’t. Change is instantaneous. It is not changing that takes so much time.”
That comment really struck Elder Christensen and he decided right then to change his behavior and quit “not changing.” I’ve also been thinking about this student’s idea that we can change instantly, but we don’t. I’m good at spending time not changing too. In fact, that is really what trips me up, over and over again!
So as I’m coming up with goals I’d like to accomplish for the new year, I’m trying to think of some things I need to quit not changing and actually make some progress by really changing them!
