Over the weekend, I spent some time thinking about life changing moments. I suspect that there aren’t a whole lot of them for most people. For me, I can identify a handful of experiences that have changed things radically for me. One of those times was a Sunday morning a little over 15 years ago. Our church brought in a guest speaker one Sunday who talked about the ministry done by Bashor Children’s Home. He spoke about the lost and abused kids that came to live there and how the home helped to bring healing and restoration to their lives. That sermon was a life-changing moment for me. I was inspired by the idea of doing that kind of work, and I wanted to do it badly. Within a few months, I was working there as a second job. It was not a picnic and every day wasn’t a joy, but even on the hardest days, I would think back to that sermon and it gave me a reason to keep working. I devoted 8 years of my life to that work. If it hadn’t been for that job, I wouldn’t be the pastor I am today, and I wouldn’t have come to Montana. It was a life-changing 30 minute sermon. What’s crazy is that I have listened to thousands of sermons and preached more than a few myself. I have been moved and inspired on many occasions, but it’s rare for a life-changing moment to take place. It’s not that the things I hear, read, or see don’t inspire me to want to change. Rather, it’s that that feeling doesn’t push me into motion nearly as often as I would like. I suspect that a lot of folks have those moments of “want” but don’t often experience radical life change. I’m not certain why that is the case, though I suspect it has to do with habits and patterns. Life change rarely happens because changing is hard. I may feel inspired to exercise more after hearing a rousing talk, but nothing will change if I don’t actually go out and start exercising. I think that is the biggest difference between life changing inspiration and everything else. Life-changing moments lead to a different behavior. I went out and got a new job after hearing that sermon. I was inspired enough to keep working in that setting despite the fact that it was easily the most difficult work I’ve ever done. The reality is that we cannot experience life-changing moments if we don’t actively change with them. It’s rare that the world will reorient around us and cater to our desires. For the most part, life change is a result of effort invested. Inspiration helps us to drive the decisions and fuel the first steps, but when the emotional high evaporates the work of going in a new direction becomes our responsibility. At the Children’s Home, I used to say a simple phrase nearly every day: “If you do what you’ve always done, you will get what you’ve always got.” Life changing encounters and experience must prompt new “doing” in us in order to be life changing. Otherwise, they are just ordinary experiences.
