Can an Ethiopian change his skin or a leopard its spots? Neither can you do good who are accustomed to doing evil. – Jeremiah 13:23

Today’s Scripture Reading (April 13, 2020): Jeremiah 13

I am a sixty-year-old, heterosexual, white male. No, this is not my dating profile, it is a partial list of the things about me that I cannot change. I also have some significant health challenges, something that I have dealt with most of my life. My health is also something I am unable to change, although I admit that there have been some Christians in my life who have thought that that was something that should be changed. Whether it is through prayer or a change in diet, they have believed that this could and should be altered. But most of my ailments are hereditary in nature. While I think that God could heal me if he wanted, I have never felt that that was what he wanted. I am okay with that. I often feel like Paul, who wrote to the Corinthian Church, “Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. But he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness’” (2 Corinthians 12:8-9) And diet is not going to change my genes. So, my health issues remain things that I cannot change.

And for the most part, I am comfortable with being me. The theme song of my life might have been penned best by Jon Bon Jovi

I like the bed I’m sleeping in
It’s just like me, it’s broken in
It’s not old -- just older
Like a favorite pair of torn blue jeans
This skin I’m in it’s alright with me
It’s not old -- just older (Just Older, Jon Bon Jovi).

Yes, there are things in my life that I cannot change.

But there are also things in my life that need work. I have a hard time doing nothing. I have a friend who is half my age who seems driven to make every moment of his life productive. I often chide him that it is okay to sit on the couch with his wife and watch a movie or play a game and get nothing accomplished. But I also understand his angst. I am wired much the same way. This is something that can, and for my health’s sake probably should, change.

I also have some bad habits that I know I need to break. Established patterns are hard to change, but far from impossible, if we really want to make a move toward a different lifestyle. But it is also not something that can change with the flick of a switch. Anyone who has tried to break a habit knows that many things in our lives seem to keep dragging us back to the things that we don’t want to do. Changing our behavior takes a healthy dose of persistence and determination, and often a stressful lifestyle can stop us from making a healthy change.

Jeremiah reminds his audience that there are things that we cannot change, and things that are hard to change. Skin or fur color belongs to the former, something that we cannot change. But don’t expect that you can excel at doing good if you have made it your practice to do evil. Like the things we cannot change, what we have long trained ourselves to do will stick with us through life. If we cheat, not cheating is hard. If we steal, giving back is hard. And if we do evil, doing good is hard.

It is not that we cannot change. But we have to decide that we will change and keep at the newly desired behavior without compromise. As Jeremiah looked at Jerusalem, he saw a city that had trained themselves to do evil and had no desire to change and do good. And so, it would be evil that they would continue to do naturally, and nothing was going to change that.

Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: Jeremiah 14