If I get this job, things will change.
Once I move to this new house, things will change.
Once I get this qualification, things will change.
This new relationship is the one, I can feel it. Things are going to change.
Have you caught yourself thinking these thoughts?
I have, many times. Always thinking that this time things were going to change, and this would be the thing that finally made everything better. And sometimes, it did, but only for a while. Things would be good again and I would think, this is what I was looking for.
But it never lasted.
Before long, the same familiar feelings would return – anxiety, depression, low mood, low self-esteem. That looming dread and hopelessness would engulf me again. And then came the belief that I needed to do something else, achieve something more or find someone new to help lift me from the pit.
What I didn’t realise at the time was that I was looking in all the wrong places. I was searching for something outside of myself to fix what was broken inside. A job. A home. A certificate. A relationship. Temporary happiness that I mistook for lasting change.
What I really needed was healing. I needed a transformation that came from the inside because I forgot that the one common denominator in all these circumstances was me!
Nothing had changed about me apart from my address, my job title or my relationship status. I was still carrying around the unresolved pain from unhealed wounds. I was running away from how I was feeling, looking for ways to escape but I came to realise that no matter where I went, what I did or what I achieved, I was still me. I was still there, and I couldn’t run from myself! Believe me, I tried! Maybe you have tried too!
I finally stopped running when I had run out of places to run to. I realised this required a power bigger than myself and my world.
I needed a heart change.
I needed God.
The Good Book says: And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone … and give you a heart of flesh. (Ezekiel 36:26)
That’s exactly what began to happen when I stopped doing things in my own strength and started surrendering it all to God … when I allowed God to do the work in me instead of constantly trying to fix and control everything around me.
Throughout my life I had needed to achieve just to feel good about myself, because deep down I felt worthless. And yet, here was God, telling me I was worth dying for.
True and lasting change doesn’t begin when things change; it begins when we change from the inside out.
If you too are tired of running, know this: God is ready to meet you right where you are. You don’t have to keep running from yourself when you run to Him.
Amber
Amber Gilbert was our Operations and Events Manager. Originally from Manchester, she is the author of ‘Running from Myself,’ a novel inspired by her life experiences, published in August 2024.