An Option Is Also Provided...Behavior Changes

So I’m reading the manual for the HD dock for my new phone and at the end of the instructions it says; “An option is also provided to make behavior changes after initially selected”.  Wait a minute…I want that option for my life!

I was talking with someone dear to me the other day; we strayed in our conversation to something concerning her son.  He is an adult and has made some, shall we say, unfortunate choices in the course of his life.  Before I knew it I was in territory I did not belong and had no business being.  It only occurred to be after our conversation that even with the best of intentions; no one wants to hear bad things about their children whether they are true or not.  Please, can I “make behavior changes after initially selected”?

How about the times when a friend or neighbor calls needing help.  And it isn’t that I don’t want to help; it’s just that it going to throw off my schedule…"mess up my grove” (“Beware the grove”).  So instead of being grateful for an opportunity to serve someone else, I reluctantly agree, only to fuss, complain and angrily finish “my scheduled stuff” later on in the day or week.  Definitely I need to “make behavior changes after initially selected”.

This causes me to think back through the years, the times I groused at the driver cutting me off, or driving too slow, calling them “jerk”, while my young daughter watched.  When unkind words were said to me and my response was to lash out, not to their face, but as my ever observant child witnessed.  Those times of crisis or urgency when my first reaction was of panic and fear, setting such an awful example of the Christian I claimed to be.  Oh baby, I needed to “make behavior changes after initially selected”.

To be honest, I need this option every day, some days multiple times.  But although it isn’t as instantaneous as touching a couple of keys on a phone I do have something even better.  2 Corinthians 5:17 tells us “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.”  And then there is Colossians 3:12-14 “Put on then, as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience,  (13)  bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive.  (14) And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony.”  Behavior change after initially selected…what a wonderful thing!!!