Why We Can't Change Other People - Blog # 65

 Dear God,

I pray that we would not put ourselves in Your shoes. We don’t have the power to decide if the sun comes up. We don’t decide if another breath enters our lungs. We don’t decide what the day will bring us. We do decide how we respond: in fear or in faith. We choose when to turn from our own sins and ask for forgiveness. Lord, give us the faith to change us and let You work on others.

Love,

Grace

There’s a classic romcom trope. It’s the bad boy meets good girl and falls head over Harley for her before cleaning up his act and finally being the good guy he always was deep down. This average girl-next-door had something special about her! She wasn’t like other girls. She was worth changing for. She was worth committing too. The other girls didn’t have her magic.

So, while no one told me this outright: it’s something I inherently believed. That if I was the right girl, then people would change. It didn’t mean just romantically. In every sense: family, friendships, boys, and situations. If I was the right girl, then they would find the strength to change and be better.

I apologize for the outright ego already. I guess I just thought I could love someone into changing their mind. I thought I could show someone that I was good enough to make a different choice than the one they were set on making. Suddenly, my worth was tied to their behaviors. If someone lied, well I wasn’t worth telling the truth to. If someone hurt me and used me to further their agenda, it was because I wasn’t good enough.

I think in my warped mindset, I felt like if I had this special magic the good girl in the romcoms have, then other people would change. Other people would be different. So, I would try to twist myself into more likable versions of myself. Be better. Smarter. Kinder. More understanding. I was indistinguishable from a pretzel. Bending over backwards didn’t even encompass me anymore. I was spineless.

I just wanted them (a general “them”: whoever I wanted to change from in the moment) to see how much they were hurting me. I wanted them to see that they loved me too much to hurt me. But it wasn’t even about that. People can love you and still hurt you. Because that’s who they are. And that’s who I am too. Hurtful. It’s not about the other person. It’s really not. It’s who we are as people living in our own sin and shame. 

When I’m taking things too personally, I end up driving myself crazy. Why didn’t they text back? Why didn’t they smile at me? Why didn’t they ask me to hang out with them? What did I do? What’s wrong with me?

But God has really been training me through this last year and up until now to see that real change has to come from Him. Not only that, we can only make real change when it’s for Him. When there’s an extrinsic motivation to change (lose weight to look better, stop that bad habit because they find it annoying, etc), once we lose interest or change doesn’t bring a reciprocal outcome, then we find ourselves back where we started. I realize now that no one has this special magic. Hollywood lied. 

In relation to the Gospel, it says: 

It is only God who makes things grow. 

Truthfully, I have to repent for thinking too highly of myself. I’m not the one who makes things grow. I’m not the one people should change for. I’m not why they change. It’s only by God do we do the impossible: repent of our sinful lives and ask for forgiveness.

Sometimes it’s easy to take someone’s lack of change as our failure. We weren’t pretty or witty or good enough. We should’ve said it this way, and they would’ve been more receptive. So many ways we feel like we had the final say. 

God, let me take the chance to speak life to myself and others. You have the final say. You had the final say over sin and death. You decided who You would save the world through. You decided the lineage of Jesus would be through broken people like me. You decided that the cross would have the last word.

Over my life, relationships, friendships, family, health, career aspirations, and church: I don’t need to be the force of change in these areas of my life. Yes, I can be a good influence. Yes, I can be encouraging. But no, I don’t need to take Your rightful place and make anyone someone they’re not.

Lord, I’m sorry for how profoundly arrogant I’ve been to think that I could change anyone’s heart. I couldn’t even change my own without You, so I pray that I would let You be in control. My job? To pray. To surrender. To intercede. To have peace in Jesus. To be willing to let people be who they are. To let go. To forgive. To choose to focus on what You called for me to do and who You called me to be.

When I focus on changing others, I can’t focus on changing myself. I’m looking at everyone else’s flaws and inadequacies while mine are right in front of me. As I work towards being more like Jesus, I don’t have time to be controlling. I don’t have any interest in forcing someone down a path they don’t want to go down. I can be understanding, loving, and accepting. I can accept someone’s choices without it being a personal affront. I can have the peace to know that GOD is the One working on them. 

It’s exhausting and fruitless to try it any other way. I can’t change them, but I can be changed. I pray for the spirit of surrender. I don’t even know what’s best for my own life, let alone someone else’s. So, it’s a good thing. It really is. God is the One who makes things grow.