Rev. Richard Smith
| Romans 12:2 Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will. |
In October I wrote about the virtue of listening. It’s a topic needing attention from all of us; especially in our divided, tense religious and political environment. A corollary virtue, when needed, is our willingness to change our minds. Since none of us have all of God’s truth – or for that matter a sprinkling of God’s truth – we can never obstinately refuse to change our minds.
Some of you know that I and a few others in June 2022 launched here in Frankfort, Kentucky through our downtown church a special ministry to the homeless, to the unhoused. God has blessed this effort wondrously and we have expanded our offerings.
Well, as the coordinator of this ministry, one of my functions is to offer new ideas and to encourage discernment in new directions. I recently pushed strongly for a particular extension of this ministry and sought to get the church leadership to respond positively. They graciously listened and asked that our ministry bring back a more detailed description of what exactly would be happening; what space would be needed; how we would galvanize volunteers; and what costs might be associated. My co-leader in this ministry and I felt we were on an upward track toward a launch perhaps in December or January.
Then I decided to talk to two unhoused friends whom I’ve come to know quite well over the last nine months or so. To my surprise, they challenged me to rethink the plan. From their homeless experiences, they felt we would be biting off more than we could handle and that the end result would be a diminishing of our current effectiveness. I went into our conversations excited that they could help us map out the best steps forward and that they themselves would be excited with this homeless ministry advancement. WRONG! Lovingly, they cautioned me to rethink, to pray some more, and to back off this direction. I had no choice but to admit my error and to withdraw the proposal.
The end result was not only avoidance of a big error for our outreach efforts, but, in actuality, a sense of peace for me. I became grateful that their honesty had helped the ministry and me. I realized in guiding me to change my mind they had given me a special spiritual offering.
Paul Prather, a thoughtful Christian writer, says this about changing our minds:
An open mind is a good thing to develop. It’s unfortunate that so many of us close our minds often and easily…There’s a key concept in Christianity called repentance…The word translated from the Greek of the original New Testament into English as “repent” or “repentance” is a compound term. It means, literally, “change your mind.” That’s it. This ancient spiritual concept tells us that meaningful progress comes from being willing to rethink, reconsider and alter all manner of things…Sometimes we stand obstinately on some opinion or perspective only to realize an hour or a decade later we might have been dead wrong. Maybe we judged prematurely or too harshly. Maybe we dismissed out of hand something that would have been a blessing. So we go back and give that rejected thing a fresh try. Frequently, miracles happen.
Truth is, being willing to hear the truth and change our minds can be a reflection of a depth of spiritual maturity we all want and need!
