The Power to Change Lives
I recently read a portion of one of Larry Crabb’s books and couldn’t get past a sentence. Larry Crabb was a Christian psychologist/counselor whose writing and ministry impacted a lot of people. Unfortunately, he died a few years ago from cancer, but his ministry lives on. I’ve respected his insight for years, and this statement is worth thinking about: “Ordinary people have the power to change other people’s lives.”
For starters, do we want to change other people’s lives? Of course, we do. Changing lives is embedded in our spiritual DNA as followers of Jesus. The Great Commission carries the idea of being change agents with the mandate to go and make disciples. Ephesians 2:10 says, “…we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works.” What are those good works? They’re varied, of course, but 1 Corinthians 12:7 makes it clear that our gifts were given to us for “the common good.”
We could look at the issue selfishly. We encounter people every day who need changing. It may be the person on the Interstate who made an unkind gesture or the co-worker who undercut you to manipulate his personal advancement. Can you imagine a world where people treated others like the Golden Rule says – the way they wanted to be treated?
Although helping others would help ourselves, that’s not a good motivator. God’s compassion is better. You need changing, and so does everyone else. The good news is God can change others, and He wants to use us in the process.
Look what else Crabb said:
The power is found in connection, that profound meeting when the truest part of one soul meets the emptiest recesses in another and finds something there, when life passes from one to the other. When that happens, the giver is left more full than before and the receiver less terrified, eventually eager, to experience even deeper, more mutual connection. The power to meaningfully change lives depends not on advice, though counsel and rebuke play a part; not on insight, though self-awareness that disrupts complacency and points toward new understanding is important; but on connecting, on bringing two people into an experience of shared life.” (Connecting: Healing for Ourselves and Our Relationships)
The power is found in connection, yet many people live disconnected from meaningful relationships. A recent Pew Research study shows that eight percent of Americans have no close friends (another study shows that fifteen percent of men have no close friends). Fifty-one percent have four or more close friends. Just those statistics alone lead experts to say we have a loneliness epidemic in America. We might think, “At least fifty-one percent have four close friends.” True, but what does that friendship look like? The top two topics of conversation among these “close friends” are work and current events. Will conversation about current events really change my life? I don’t think so.
Our challenge as followers of Jesus is to strive for that experience the Bible calls koinonia, or fellowship. I hesitate to use the word fellowship because it makes us think of coffee and donuts or potluck dinners. Real fellowship, the kind that changes lives, involves openness and relational intimacy. It requires honesty and even probing, exhorting and comforting. The writer of Hebrews even said we should be able to “provoke one another to love and good deeds” (Heb 10:24). Provoke? NASV says “stimulate.” The word is used to describe what you do to a cow with a cattle prod.
Bottom line – Let’s be change agents. It requires connection. Make friends, good friends, and then get out your prod. Maybe not a prod. Maybe a tender and even bold heart to love on your friends and help them become the men and women God made them to be. It will change their lives…and yours.
