When God Provides the Power to Change

Posted on by Jennifer Arimborgo

Burden

“Give yourself to the Lord; trust in him, and he will help you” (Ps. 37:5, GNT).

Recognize this verse? Yep, it was our verse for Thursday too. Except that was a different translation. Why are we looking at this again today? Cuz Holy Spirit said so. Hehe.

This afternoon during my prayer time, He was gently convicting me about an area of my life that needs further transformation. His conviction was pure love. Pure tenderness.

In the past, I may have responded to a moment like that differently. I may have taken Holy Spirit’s message as instruction for self-improvement. I may have had a thought something like, Okay. That needs to change. I’m gonna try harder. I want to obey!

Today, I am in a different place. He has taught me to respond to His loving conviction instead like this: Yes, Daddy, I am in agreement with You. I submit to what You are breathing into my spirit for growth and change. Please send Your power through me, bringing forth the necessary changes by Your Spirit.

Instead of striving, I’m submitting. Instead of trying harder, I’m giving Him all the room He needs to work His mighty work inside of me. I’m coming to understand that He doesn’t bring these matters to my attention so that I can fix them myself. He is the Master Fixer-Upper! I’m fully cooperating with His powerful, gentle leadership as He spreads out His magnificent blueprints for transforming my soul. I’m yielding to the process He already began and He has promised to complete.

He may ask me for a specific step of obedience, to put into action what He is doing in my soul. If He does, I will respond, Yes Daddy. I choose to obey. I offer my body as a living sacrifice. Will you please let Your power flow through me right now as I step into what You are asking me to do? I thank You that You are the One working in me to will and to act according to Your good purpose!

Changing us is always His job. Yielding to Him is always our job. He convicts. We say yes; we invite Him to come. And He faithfully, relentlessly continues the work of transforming us into the image of Jesus.

What do we do, meanwhile, though, when we are not “there” yet? What do we do when we feel burdened by our perceived shortcomings? How do we handle those feelings? The Amplified Bible (Classic Edition) of our verse for today is worth looking at. It speaks to that heaviness that so often troubles us when we know we have fallen short:

“Commit your way to the Lord [roll and repose each care of your load on Him]; trust (lean on, rely on, and be confident) also in Him and He will bring it to pass.”

Isn’t that beautiful? Roll each care of your load onto Him. Including the heaviness you feel about letting Him, or others, or yourself down. Let Him take that weight from you. Trust in Him. Lean on Him. Rely on Him. Be confident. He will provide the power. He promises to keep on transforming you from glory to glory as you fix your eyes on Him. Yes, He will bring it to pass.

Now look at it one more time in the Good News Translation. “Give yourself to the Lord; trust in him, and he will help you.”

That’s it. Give yourself to Him. Every day. Every moment. Trust deeply in Him. He will provide all the help you need for obedience, transformation, and beautiful forward progress!

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Have you experienced the relief of completely rolling over onto Jesus the burden of having fallen short?

22 thoughts on “When God Provides the Power to Change”

  1. Thanks for sharing your thoughts with us Jennifer.

    Psalm 37:39 states: “The salvation of the righteous is from the Lord;
    He is their refuge in the time of trouble.”

    God is indeed the power and inspiration for change. He works tirelessly as a master mechanic would, but He guarantees to return to check on us again and again.

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  3. Jennifer, one of my major habits that I developed of many years was to believe, I am here to FIX THINGS and “people “. This has led me down many bad roads and experiences. I now surrender ALL the Master Fixer and this burden I took on is diminishing quickly. What a blessing available to all who will do the same and trust in the Lord, for He is good. Amen
    Len Wisniewski

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  5. It can be very liberating, and it comes to mind every January 1: Instead of making New Year’s Resolutions to DO something more, do it better, try harder, etc., I resolve to just yield continuously to God and see what HE can do – what He has probably been longing to do for many years..

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    1. That’s perfect! I love it very much. At the New Year I generally don’t make resolutions either, but spend extensive time with Him just telling Him I want more of Him, and more of whatever He wants to do this year!

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  8. What relief to know He doesn’t expect us to google and do a search on “How to Change”! Some of my most profound changes have felt a lot like I felt after a painting breakup with someone: one day I realized that I hadn’t thought about for a while and don’t know when or how it happened! Thanks for sharing, Jennifer!

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  9. Wow. Thank you Jennifer for expressing this so profoundly. It IS the TRUTH I’m still journeying with Him to bring about in my life. Absolute dependence on what He has already done for me at Calvary and letting Him through the Holy Spirit, change me. (No striving or ‘having’ to DO something). Surrender to Him, Loving interaction and repentance as we journey together. Thank you. Thank you for sharing with us.

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