Beth Moore — Begging for Something (05/05/2017)
I've got to tell you something. A buddy of mine sent me a note, I think it was within a package that she was sending that had a T-shirt in it, something she wanted to share with me; a good buddy of mine back in Houston by the name of Sue. She sent me a note; it was kind of random but fun because she's kind of random and fun, and I love that about her.
She said -- she writes me a little note here and she says that she had been recently to a hospital convention, because she works for a hospital and had been to their annual convention, and they had a really great speaker.
She said that the speaker got up and began to talk about how we will die at least inside if we cease to change. That we've got to be people, if we're going to grow as people, and she wasn't really speaking in a spiritual context, but we know -- we know that it is even more true according to the Word of God.
The whole idea of repentance, that word metanoia, in the Greek language, means to change one's mind; to turn and to become different. So we know it is strategic to our faith. But this speaker was talking on more of a secular or psychological kind of input. And so she says to them, she says, "I want you all to stand to your feet." And she said, "What are five things you could change on your person right now?" And she says, "Go!"
And so they were all kind of looking around trying to figure out what they were supposed to do. So my friend Sue says -- so she says, "What are five things on your person you can change instantly?" So my friend Sue, she names them out. She says, "Number one, I changed my hair."
So she had her hair back in a clip. She takes the clip out, she changed her hair. She took off her name tag. Three, she took off her shoes. Four, she unbuttoned her top button. Five, she just put "whatever." I want you to understand what an obsessive thinker I am. It has driven me crazy that she didn't give me five.
Because I want to know what the fifth thing was. Don't give me one through four -- either tell me that you changed a lot of things or give me five! But don't give me one through four and then go "whatever" on number five. What was number five?
So I've thought about it and thought about it. What could it be? But what I loved about it, listen to this part of her note. It says, "The nurse next to me at the convention could not change anything on her person. She said, 'I don't understand the question.'"
I thought how intriguing it was that we stand there paralyzed. Here's the question. What are five things you could change instantly about yourself? And she stands there paralyzed. Everybody in the room changes something about their hair, taking off their shoes, taking off their name tag, whatever it might have been.
She stands there going, "Now what? I didn't understand the question." Because in her mind, it's too much. It's too much. I have a dear friend that says, "You know what? I'm tired. I've changed enough."
But this is the agenda on planet earth that God, who came to work a wonder in us will not cease until we see him face- to-face. Now it had been like that over 40 years so suddenly, of course you didn't miss the part of the miracle that he jumps to his feet and begins to leap because it should have been that he has in maybe six solid months of rehab in order to even stand up.