Life is an Inside Job

Life is an inside job. God wants us to grow up spiritually and this spirit is inside us not outside us.  We look at the problems and failings in our lives, broken relationships, and failures and we resolve ourselves to tackle them with outside solutions. This outside-in mentality dominates modern man’s thinking. Our view is; the problem is out there, so the solution is out there too. But we get confused and disheartened when outside solutions do not solve our deep rooted problems. But God says the solution is inside and that solution is Him. The purpose of life is not to change the world but change ourselves. Internal conquest precedes external conquest.  Problems will always exist as long as the world will exist. We won’t always exist in this world. When we change, our deeds reflect this change. We change by faith. External deeds and works reflect our internal change by faith. We can’t change ourselves, not real change; it is only God that changes us. We can change ourselves superficially by will power, lose weight by going on a diet, improve our communication and interpersonal skills with techniques, learn a new skill and improve our income, give up an addictive bad habit. Most of these changes are temporary and short lived because they are anchored to a weak foundation. But deep change, change in our souls comes through God, not will power alone. It is more then change, we become a new creation, a new being.  This change is anchored to a stronger foundation. The foundation to change is based on a stronger character then we have now, it is a new character in God. When people seek change from outside they get results based on the weakness of the world. The weakness in other people and external circumstances are transferred into us. We become victims and blame others and circumstances for not solving our problems. This is a childish approach to our lives. Superficial level thinking will not solve deep foundational problems we face in life. Only deep, slow thinking, based on faith in God, and principles of good and right conduct, can we solve these issues. It is paradoxical that we solve these issues by solving ourselves. We need a virtue centred character, focused on God and an internal spiritual driven approach to living.