"And the Lord said unto me: 'Marvel not that all mankind, yea men and women, all nations, kindreds, tongues and people must be born again; yea, born of God, changed from their carnal and fallen state, to a state of righteousness, being redeemed of God, becoming his sons and daughters'"
I have a few quotes from C.S. Lewis and the Book of Mormon that helped me to see my own lack in this area. William Law said "if you will here stop and ask yourselves why you are not as pious as the primitive Christians were, your own heart will tell you, that it is neither through ignorance nor inability, but purely because you never thoroughly intended it." This was the starting place for me to come to better understand the change of heart. I always respected those men and women who have risen above the world and by so doing have come closer to God than most of the rest of us. The prophets both ancient and modern are good examples. There is a story told of a group of men sitting around talking about a fellow Christian whose house had burned down. They all expressed how sorry they were for the man and his family. Joseph Smith, a prophet, came up to them and said "I am sorry to the amount of ten dollars (a much more considerable sum of money then than it is today)."
So often I have used lip service to describe my desires to draw closer to God. What I have always failed to do is say "I want to be closer to God in the amount of ... " For me, it was in the amount of a half hour of sleep, hours of TV and video games, and prideful emotions. I would instead say things like "I want to be closer to God." And then I would look up to see if my halo was in place for even voicing such a wonderful statement. So the first step in my search for a change of heart happened when I actually chose to seek it. I wanted to be like the prophets and apostles and Jesus Himself the same way that a bum wants a Corvette. Sure he would like a Corvette, but he doesn't want to go through the education or long hours of work and the self discipline of saving in order to buy one. When we passively watch our individual "Corvettes" drive by us, we are only lying to ourselves if we say that we want them.
"Give me all of you. I don’t want so much of your time, so much of your talents and money, and so much of your work. I want you! All of you. I have not come to torment or frustrate the natural man or woman, but to kill it. No half measures will do. I don’t want to only prune a branch here and a branch there; rather I want the whole tree out! Hand it over to me, the whole outfit, all of your desires, all of your wants and wishes and dreams. Turn them all over to me, give yourself to me and I will make of you a new self---in my image. Give me yourself and in exchange I will give you Myself. My will, shall become your will. My heart, shall become your heart."
— C.S. Lewis (Mere Christianity)
C.S. Lewis wrote this as a quote from Jesus. There is something very complete in the analogy of being born again. You can't have a habit born again or a piece here or there. You can't change one thing and claim to have been born again. When we are born again, what we receive is something completely new. Just as Christ says that we do not put new wine in old bottles, we cannot have the full measure of the Spirit in a body that is not born again. Just as we cannot go to the gospel buffet and pick the things that we would like and leave the rest, we cannot say to God "Look, I know you want me to change this particular habit or action but I just don't think it is that bad. Not to mention I like doing it. I value your opinion God, but I really think I know better on this one." I would never dream of actually saying that to God, but I often find myself ignoring His promptings, and that is in essence saying it.
Of course, here's the rub. It is a certified fact that humans don't do the right thing (I won't use the word mistake here because a mistake is something done inadvertently). At some point in the very recent past, if we will be truly honest with ourselves, we will recognize that we knew that what we were doing was not in line with God's will and we did it anyway. It may have been that mean word that we said to our spouse or child, or that bad thought we had about the driver who cut us off. I use those examples because they are probably the most common sins in my life. Regardless of each individual challenge we recognize that we do not do what we know we should do quite often. So that is what brings us to this need for something higher than ourselves to change us into beings that are able to choose the right.
"Because of the Spirit of the Lord Omnipotent, which has wrought a mighty change in us, or in our hearts, that we have no more disposition to do evil, but to do good continually." (Mosiah 5:2)
So many times I have heard things like "Alma (or Paul) was special. The rest of us are much different." Now I admit that most people do not see angels or the ressurected Lord, but their conversions are preserved in the scriptures so that we can emulate them. Both of these great men received revelation that convinced them of their errors, and then after painful repentance processes both ended up as great men. Since I receive revelation frequently that convinces me of my errors, I am in the same position as them. I don't need to have the calling of a prophet or an apostle to be as worthy as one. Our Heavenly Father intends for us to be perfected in Him. That means at some point in eternity I will have to give up the petty sins and little imperfections that I tenaciously hold onto.
The question that I pose to myself and any other fellow procrastinator is "why wait?" I have the conviction that God lives and I know what His plan for me is... so why should I live beneath what He wants for me? I refer back to the quote by William Law... it is because I never really intended to be what He wants me to be. I want to get closer to God. I want a change of heart. But I don't want those things in the amount of... all of the things that I could change that I haven't yet. An interesting thing about the change of heart is that the heart is the home of our desires. Frequently the scriptures speak of the "desires of our heart." The people in the scripture above did not say "we will never ever do anything wrong again." They said "we have no more desire to do evil." However, that does not necessarily make the quest for a change of heart easier. A desire is much deeper than an action. This is why we cannot do it ourselves. I have many desires, but I don't force myself to have any of them. However, God does not go around our agency. He will not change a heart we do not want him to change. We show him how much we want our heart to be changed by what we are willing to change ourselves. Me changing a few actions is nothing compared to Him changing my whole heart, but it is the act of changing those behaviors that allows Him to change my heart.
Going back to the Corvette analogy... our attempts to change our behavior is like a proof of income or a good credit rating or a large down payment. It does not signify that we can actually buy the Corvette, but it does signify to someone who can (the bank) that we are serious about this purchase and that we truly intend to purchase it eventually. We may not be able to have everything it takes now, but we are willing to put our credit rating and future income on the line as proof that I will pay for it. God is our creditor. He can do for us what we could never do for ourselves, but only on condition that we first show Him and ourselves in the process that we are willing to be what He wants us to be. This is in essence the change of heart. When we are willing to put aside anything that we can put aside that is holding us back in order to be like Him, we are willing to have a change of heart. And that is what He gives us. I do not claim that I am on the highway to perfection, but I have felt a mighty change in my life so maybe I'm at least on a surface street. But the amazing thing is, when I gave up those few things I could give up I was changed. Now I am faced with a new set of sins to relinquish. But I couldn't even see them as sins until the change of heart. The Savior gives us the ability to overcome everything when we make our token effort on some things. So the moral of the story is: do you want to have a new heart? Do you want to have a new heart in the amount of...?
