Can Human Beings Really Change?

This question haunts history and often haunts our personal lives as well. "Can he, can she, can I really change?" It was this question, I believe, that haunted Nicodemas, and why the old respected teacher came by night to seek wisdom from the young, country prophet. And, this prophet, who was more than a prophet said to Nicodemas: "You must be born again . . . of the Spirit of God."

I like the language "born again." It conveys the radical starting over, giving up, and newness of life from God that comes among us and to us in Jesus.

But, we, like Nicodemas, think and feel: "But, how can a man really start over (or, as Nicodemas literally said: "Can a man go back into his mother's womb?")? Or, as Jackson Browne sings: "The future's there for anyone to change, still you know it seems, it would be easier sometimes to change the past."

"Can he ever change? Can she ever change? Can I change?"

In a British novel I was reading yesterday, one of the characters gives an opinion on this question saying: "No, but people can learn to manage themselves a bit better."

From the human side, maybe that is a pretty good answer. Maybe it is when we learn to manage ourselves a little bit better that the soil is prepared for change. Maybe that is all we can do. Learn to manage ourselves a little bit better and hope for the change that comes from beyond, the Spirit that blows where it wills, and nobody knows where it starts and where it ends. It takes faith to believe we can learn to manage ourselves better, and faith to believe that that prepares the ground for a transformation that we can't manage but only accept with thanksgiving and wonder.

*For the story of Nicodemas, see the Gospel of John in the New Testament of the Christian Bible, the first part of chapter 3.