Change Your Mind

It's How You Become Better

Ever noticed...that it seems harder for people to change their minds as they get older?

Why is that?  Perhaps this is because it took a while for people to form their minds in the first place and once they do, all the related dynamics involved inhibit the process of doing it again.

There are, of course, people who seem to always change their mind.  So, there is no one-size-fits-all rule on this.  But, the formation of the mind and the subsequent elasticity of it is a rather conspicuous thing.

It is not hard to observe that when someone does change their mind, there are often significant relational events (including painful ones) that seem to be involved.  As much as we would like to think that our minds should be like fixed points, they really aren't.  We change our minds routinely, especially when certain factors are involved.

It seems that one of the more significant influences in the change-your-mind issue is religion.  We often feel a sense that because of something in this domain, changing your mind is a bad thing.  Holding on to something, under the premise of truth, is idealized.

But numerous passages in the Christian New Testament Scriptures seem to describe something quite like the necessity of changing your mind.  Some have even noted that changing your mind is at the base of repentance; in other words, if your don't change your mind your mind you can't repent.  The emphasis with repentance often focuses on behavior changes.  But, what drives behavior changes?  How you think about things.  

Several examples come to mind, including the parable of the rich young ruler; Peter's vision with Cornelius; Jesus' admonition to Nicodemus — "You must be born...again"; passage after passage where Jesus says something like — "It has been said...but, I say...".  And, then, there is the whole context for the his parable about new and old wineskins.  

Changing our minds is hard, often even painful.  It pulls on the tension between holding on to things (especially ideas) and letting go of them.  It is reinforced by our desire for control, predictability, certainty.  

And, these kinds of things often end up at odds with something like...faith. — trusting in something, especially in the context of the many tensions we feel in life.  What am I trusting in?  What I believe in or Who I believe in?  Sometimes, often surprisingly, that can be a big difference.

Few would disagree that, generally, children would be accurately described as...wise (even with the beauty about the simplicity of their faith that even Jesus acknowledges).  But, as children grow and learn — and understand more — we often see that as they become adults, they become something more than they were as children.  Some even make it to the point of wisdom.  

It takes much experience with the range of living to cause this to happen; often, even, with felt set-backs to what we thought we knew.  But the circumstances and the trajectories of what they trigger in us often lead us beyond our child-like perceptions.  They lead to us to something more profound; to something with more dimension, more depth, more range...even to more humility.  This process is often a function of our ability to recognize the importance of change — in us, in others, in our world.

God, the Creator, certainly is not afraid of change.  As a basic function of creating, it is in fact built in.  

And, as much as we have messed things up, how dire would our situation be if there were no possibility of growth, of change, of becoming better?  God seems to recognize this quite comfortably and relentlessly uses the many processes of life to draw us along into a deeper, richer, and more beautiful understanding of the reality God created.

We must be willing to change our mind, if we truly want to engage who God is and, therefore, ourselves and the world.