I wonder what the best piece of advice you’ve ever received is. For me, without a doubt, it was a college tutor telling the tutor group that it’s always ok to change your mind. You can think one thing today and then learn something new, or experience something which impacts you, or meet someone who changes the way you view things. And that’s alright. Just because one day you said your favourite food was bacon doesn’t mean that your favourite food has to be bacon for the rest of your life!
Ok, that’s a flippant example, but the same thing applies for careers, politics, opinions, beliefs… In fact, there are very few decisions that are set in stone. I did a degree in music, volunteered for a church and now work in tourism. My favourite fruit used to be watermelon, now I prefer blackberries. Over time, I have also changed my mind on more political topics.
The point is, no matter what decisions we make we are rarely truly stuck. There is always hope. If you don’t like where you are going, you can change your mind. Sometimes opinions or decisions are right for one season, but not for the next. (By season, I mean christian-ese for a period in our life often defined by a trend in emotions or a pattern of occurrences. Often used ‘seasons’ include season of waiting, season of growing, season of letting go.) Seasons are a helpful analogy though, because just like the seasons in the year, they change. Maybe the changes are subtle, maybe they are huge. Maybe the change is gradual or maybe it’s sudden. But seasons change, and with them we can change our minds.
Better yet, their is a biblical precedent for it. Over the next three posts I’m going to visit three bible characters that prove to me that it’s ok to change your mind.
The first character is Peter. The impulsive disciple. Started out as a fisherman. That’s what he was trained as, that was his career. Then some radical guy from Nazareth came along and said “Follow me and I’ll make you a fisher of men”. And so Peter changed his mind. He wouldn’t follow the family business that he had trained for. He would follow this new opportunity that had come up. I bet when he was learning how to fish he never imagined the opportunity would come to leave the nets behind and travel with a guy who would heal and drive out demons, or that he would become a spokesman for the early church! But the point is he didn’t remain stuck in a job, he didn’t take the safe route. He changed his mind.
Not sold? Ok, how about at the last supper. Jesus kneels to wash his feet. Peter is shocked (slaves washed feet, not respected teachers). He refuses. Jesus says “if you won’t let me wash your feet, you have no place with me”. Peter changes his mind. “Ok, then wash all of me!” Oh, Peter! Quite an extreme change of mind. But Jesus replies “If you’ve had a bath you are already clean, only your feet need washing” (Ok, there’s a spiritual level to the exchange too, and I have paraphrased, but you get the idea.) And Peter changes his mind and submits. Always open to correction, Peter knows he can change his mind around Jesus and Jesus will accept it.
Let’s go for one more example. Jesus has died, risen and ascended. Peter is know sharing the news among the Jews. Then he gets a dream. In the dream, there is a large sheet lowered from heaven covered in animals that were considered unclean and not edible in Jewish culture. A voice urges Peter to kill and eat from the sheet. In the vision, Peter refuses, saying he has never eaten anything impure or unclean. The voice then says “Do not call anything impure that God has made clean”. The sheet returns to heaven and Peter is sent to preach to the Gentiles, because God had taught him not to call anything impure which God had made clean, and the God had spoken to these men too even though they weren’t Jews. And Peter doesn’t say “I’m sorry, I’ve only ever teach Jews.” Instead he says “God has just taught me not to call impure what he has made clean” and started to teach them about Jesus. And those men were annointed and believed in Jesus. Again, Peter changes his mind, this time based on learning something new.
So you see, changing your mind on opinions is biblical. Saying something then changing your mind is biblical. Deciding to change career and try something new is biblical. We are never stuck by where our past has put us. There is always hope for the future. And the best bit is we never know what’s round the corner! Sometimes, we just have to know it’s ok to change your mind.
The Reason for my Hope Blog 