Recently, I had to make some changes in my eating habits. I started to eat different foods and I didn’t like it. It made me feel different. I was cranky and unpleasant. It was almost like feeling withdraw symptoms that people with addiction experience. Though I didn’t like the way I felt, I knew it was necessary to get to a point of change.
Who is ever successful in those New Year’s resolutions? We usually stop those resolutions sometime around mid-February. Why? It’s hard. It is hard to change those habits that we know are not good for us.Organization consultants talk about change all the time. Many fear the word “change.” Why?
Change usually involves three areas of focus. A recent university study found that three things (pictured right)are required to make a difference.
The study also found some other information that will shock us (not really):
- There are no easy solutions.
- Adapt processes to suit the change intended.
- Change requires teamwork and leadership (and the two are related).
- Work with the culture (even when you want to change it).
- Communicate, communicate, communicate.
The trouble is we know these things, but we seldom want to do what is required to change an unhealthy habit.
In our lectionary passage for Sunday, Jeremiah receives a new word about what is going to happen to the Israelites in Babylonian captivity in Jeremiah 31:
31The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. 32It will not be like the covenant that I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt—a covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, says the Lord. 33But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. 34No longer shall they teach one another, or say to each other, “Know the Lord,” for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, says the Lord; for I will forgive their iniquity, and remember their sin no more.
What change! No doubt this would be difficult, but when we read the book of Jeremiah he did all the right things. Set up a process for change, provided leadership, worked with the culture, and communicated the vision. The people struggled, but the future was bright.
Though there were some initial struggles with my new eating habits, I was able to achieved results. Israel had to change their habits and they were not happy about it. No more foreign gods or old covenants. The key to changing our habits are found in support and leadership. We may not like it at first, but if we want to better our lives we need to know what is essential for positive results.
Who is helping you change your unhealthy habits? How can we help one another to be more effective in achieving positive results for our lives?
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