Don’t you love that when God begins to change our hearts, old habits and behaviors start to dissappear? You celebrate and rejoice that the old things in you that weren’t so appealing have vanished. But then… one day that old you peeks around the corner for a minute and takes you by surprise.
Joyce Meyer recently said something that fit this well: “That old man dies and we think we got him buried, but we still drag him around in a coffin just in case we need him.”
Do we ever really get rid of the old us, or do we just bury it until we think we need him? The other day the old me popped up and frankly, I didn’t like it. I opened the wooden box, let the old man out and bam! When all was said and done, I was not impressed. As a matter of fact, I felt like a fool.
A few days later I was processing with a friend and she told me that “I hadn’t made for a nice SJ.” Those words I could handle, but when she told me I had lost my gentleness, I stopped in my tracks. My heart hurt. Working to be gentle has been a struggle throughout my life, and to know that I failed at doing so saddened me. It saddened me because my lack of gentleness hurt others.
Honestly, grace and mercy are not my strongpoints. I am a rough around the edges kinda gal, but God has turned me into a teddy bear. However, when the old man came out of the coffin, the teddy bear was gone. I’m not okay with that. I’m not okay with letting the “old man” creep up. Her words brought me back to the reality that I’m a work in progress – a constant work in progress. We all are.
But, as Joyce says, “I’m not where I need to be, but thank God I’m not where I used to be.”
Have you experienced the old man coming back?
The Heartbreak of Old Behaviors
