Only God Can Change Man

Can the Ethiopian change his skin or the leopard its spots?

Then may you also do good who are accustomed to do evil.

Jeremiah 13:23

Perhaps parents learn before anyone else just how impossible it is to change their children and to rid them of their rebelliousness or disobedience. Maybe wives struggling with difficult marriages because of their husband's disconnectedness or addictions know best that they cannot be good enough in their own roles to change the men they married. Or just maybe if we've gotten honest insight enough to look at ourselves, we've faced the hidden things of our heart - desires and attitudes that should have no place in ourselves - and know that we cannot make permanent change only some successful periods of white-knuckling.

You meet him who rejoices and does righteousness,

Who remembers You in Your ways.

You are indeed angry, for we have sinned—

In these ways we continue;

And we need to be saved.

Isaiah 64:5

Maybe as you read this you are thinking of sin issues that need to be annihilated, maybe you are just facing some things you'd like to change or improve. The key is settling it with yourself that you cannot change any heart (your own or someone else's) and therefore setting your face steadfastly towards the LORD. If you really believe that you have no power to change the heart of man, then you must cry out, give God no rest and wait until He acts on your behalf. What this will look like in your individual case will differ. Maybe, as I needed to do for a period of time in my earlier walk, you will need to spend extended periods of time reading the word of God, praying desperate prayers and fasting like there was no tomorrow. Or maybe you will need to spend some time in deep intercession for someone else, making supplication based on the will of God and letting that person go to Him. God can change the heart and He delights to do it to the praise of His glorious grace (Isa. 61:3; Eph. 1:6). Call upon Him, pour yourself out before Him, and put all your trust in Him.

But now, O LORD,

You are our Father;

We are the clay, and You our potter;

And all we are the work of Your hand.

Isaiah 64:8