What's familiar is not always what's best

YOUR PATH: WordBytes » Faith Booster Minis » What’s familiar is not always what’s best

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Change is hard. Our brains are wired to prefer what’s old and familiar. Even when we know that making a change is important, the DNA from our ancient ancestors scream out that change means danger. The relatives of our ancestors who wandered into new territory often met with disasters that they were not equipped to handle. Those who preferred to stay in the safety of the known and familiar were the ones who survived to pass their genes onto us.

Today, we spend a lot of time and money to overcome these genes. We buy books about reaching new goals, hire coaches to spur us on, sign up with exercise gyms to lose weight because we can’t change the lifestyle that made us fat.

But how many New Year’s resolutions do we even remember making? How often do we restart new habits because they never became well-ingrained habits? How many of our problems are reruns with only small differences?

It’s tempting to say, “This is who I am, it’s in my DNA, I’ll just accept life as it is.” Remember, though, who the tempter is. And Who the victor over temptation is. Jesus has given you his Holy Spirit to empower you to make any changes that he has asked you to make.