I am reading John Ortberg's "The Me I Want to Be." Its a fairly easy read but Ortberg, a Presbyterian pastor in Menlo Park, CA, always has a way of saying things that catch my attention and cause me to think a little deeper. At the conclusion of chapter 2 he writes, "Jesus once said that with God, all things are possible, and the great thing about life with God is that your next step is always possible. That step toward God is always waiting, no matter what you have done or how you messed up your life."

I meet and talk with people who have the very stated position that God could never love them or accept them because they have messed up too often and too deeply. They are convinced that a loving God doesn't have enough mercy and forgiveness to ever offer it to them. While they point the finger at God's inability to forgive I think the real issue is quite often our own inability to accept forgiveness and mercy. Some of the folks I talk with say they want out of their problems but they aren't willing to do what it takes to overcome them, so they find ways of being content in their misery. This breaks my heart and I know it breaks the heart of God whom I believe calls out to them to accept his love and his deep desire for their lives to be better.

A better life is what we all want. If I want a better life then I must first decide I no longer want the life I am currently living and begin to change the way I am living and the way I make decisions, even little ones. This is called transformation. Its about change. Possibly the hardest part about change is that we have too tight a grip on our past and are unwilling to let go of it because the future is at best uncertain. But with God our future is not uncertain, accept God's forgiveness and mercy and we can begin to experience life to the fullest.

It begins when you and I make the decision to change who we are into what God calls us to become.