Don't Try to Change Me!

I recently came across a “Credo for Support” for working with people with disabilities. From what I’ve learned about it, it was written in the wake of the tragic murder of a young girl with cerebral palsy at the hands of her father. While I understand and fully support the overarching theme of the credo, there were a few things that stuck out to me as incredibly skewed, but also as an interesting commentary on Western culture and the way that most of us were taught to think.

First up: “Do not try to change me. You have no right.”

I’ll admit. I’ve thought this one before. No one likes to be corrected, to be called out on something, or to feel like there are areas in their life that are not up to par. Though you probably wouldn't be able to tell outwardly, I most often times get angry, defensive, and spend the next 24 hours running the conversation through my head when someone critiques me. "Surely no one knows ME better than ME! I'm my biggest critic!" Often these things blindside us in a pretty painful way because there are just some things that others can see that we’re somehow oblivious to.

What I think of as funny, someone else might see more clearly as offensive and hurtful.

What I think of as confidence, others might more accurately observe as arrogance and pride.

What I think of as a weakness I was born with, others might challenge as an area of laziness or apathy in my life.

I’m sure none of these things have ever been true of you.

Even when we are keenly aware of the things that need to be changed in our lives, we absolutely need people to come along side us to encourage, correct, love, and encourage us some more, otherwise change will be nothing more than a pipe dream.

What doesn’t work, and hopefully what the credo was trying to get at, is that change, and people, can’t simply be projects.

When goals to set out to change people become like a sales quota or measure for success, we’ve exchanged relationship for results.

That’s not God’s way, and it shouldn’t be ours either.

Think about it. He doesn’t demand that we instantly change or He will automatically send us to the bad place. He doesn’t even require that we get it figured out by the end of our lifetime – which is good, since none of us will.

Nope. He’s in it for relationship. All He asks is that we try and He’ll help us do the rest.

And that’s the point of the Cross - Jesus came so that we can change in relationship with Him and because we can’t change nearly enough to match God’s perfect holiness all at the same time.

I’m incredibly thankful for the people in my life who have loved me enough to be honest with me about parts of my character that need to change and want people around me that will continue to do that. Only by God’s grace and through those relationships do I have any hope for change. -CK