Healing And Change Series

T&T Level 1 - Class 1 - Spiritual Talk - “Healing and Change” (May 2025)

I love this quote by C.S. Lewis: There are far better things ahead than any we leave behind.”

Have Scripture on Screen: Romans 12:2a Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind

Some may wonder why here and later on I refer to passages from the Bible.

The reason I do so is that in my experience the Bible, compared to a lot of other books I have read in whole or in part, has a great deal of wisdom, practical and spiritual wisdom, that is condensed and presented in a way, largely in a series of stories and poems, that I find extremely helpful and really down to earth.

Also, the Bible is my wheelhouse, it’s what I know the best. So that is why you’ll be seeing me reference the Bible more than once. Just so you know.

Today we want to talk about healing and change. Change comes about largely from the desire to change, the desire to heal followed up by the decision to change; it comes from some sense we develop that there is more; there is a way of living...better. That’s better than we’re living now.

Change in this sense means discovering the courage within ourselves to leave the familiar but unhealthy in our lives.

That includes familiar but unhealthy thought patterns, familiar and unhealthy thought patterns instilled in us when we were young.

It also includes ways that we view ourselves, and also sometimes familiar but unhealthy thought patterns we’ve picked up through the hurts we’ve gone through, the pain we’ve experienced - through negative experiences we’ve had and negative messages that we have listened to.

As we leave the familiar but unhealthy, it’s always best to do that with a destination in mind. We want to live a better life.

We want to overcome our hurts and traumas. That’s a vision of a new place to dwell.

We want to live free. That’s a new state of being.

We want to live with joy. That’s a great reason to leave sadness and despair behind.

Joy is a mindset, a learned way-of- being - almost a lifestyle, and we each have work to do to embed healthy new ways of living into our days.

Change comes from the decision to change, and that change - another word is transformation - changes comes as we refresh and renew our thinking.

[ The following is spoken slowly while the video plays: https://youtu.be/g_EJeQ1rvpk or https://youtu.be/g_EJeQ1rvpk?si=aPK1YaKfLERfj5pk ]

The word for transform in the original language is Metamorphoo (pronounced: meta-mar-pha-ooh). In nature a beautiful example of metamorphosis is the Butterfly. Pause

The butterfly goes through a process of change, from one familiar thing, that it may not even be aware is a limitation, to another thing. Pause

They live first as caterpillars, build their cocoons, then they literally break down into a goop of cells and rearrange themselves in an evidently guided way to become butterflies. It’s an intense process!

Caterpillars are so fragile and surrounded by so much danger, and the process of becoming a butterfly involves them being disassembled and reassembled within their cocoons.

If God can guide this delicate process to produce something as beautiful as a butterfly, a fair question for us to ask, I think, is: What then can he do in my life?

The development of the butterfly parallels the idea of spiritual renewal. We choose to leave our old selves and lives behind and emerge to focus on a new, changed and improved life, just like a caterpillar is re-created into a butterfly.

While its the same essential being underneath, in its DNA as it was before its transformation, it is nevertheless new and free now. Free of the bondages of the earth, free to fly, free to soar above all that ever held it back, held it down. (Pause)

A caterpillar doesn’t become a butterfly overnight. Some caterpillars even hibernate, only pupating and maturing once the weather warms again and conditions are just right.

You may be in a hurry to reach your goals, but butterflies are a reminder to be patient. Patience is a virtue.

Caterpillars are terrestrial, capable of little more than climbing, eating, and sleeping.

They undergo metamorphosis and are transfigured into butterflies. They’re no longer limited by and bound to the earth; they can fly!

Transformation is the shift between the old life and the new.

Our hearts can go through a process of transformation, and that starts as our minds are renewed, with new knowledge, new understanding of ourselves, new appreciation for who we are and who we have been created to be, and potentially even, for those who choose, a new relationship with the One who has created us in love.