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Tiffany Malone, a gifted author, coach, teacher and speaker empowers each listener with the tools and thought provoking dialogue to do the route/root work necessary for a transformed life of purpose and divine destiny.
The understanding of your eyes would be enlightened. Hey, family. Welcome back to the Root Work podcast with Tiffany Malone. This is season 1 episode 9 episode 9. We are we are chugging along, and, it's gonna be a great day today.
Tiffany Malone:I wanted to share something today that I was thinking about the other day in all transparency in a moment of frustration. I was doing some reflection about a particular thing in my life. And as I was doing so and, you know just taking some quiet time and some reflection time and some prayer time, a question kind of bubbled up inside of me that has bubbled up before. Maybe maybe just maybe you've asked this question before. So I thought it would be something that would be worthwhile to talk about today.
Tiffany Malone:And the question is, what is so hard about change? You know, why is change so hard? I don't know about you, but there have been things that I have, wrestled with sometimes for years. Small things, big things. And I've talked to friends, family.
Tiffany Malone:They've all echoed the same sentiments. Maybe you've even had things in your life that maybe they were just stubborn little things. Maybe they were big things. Maybe they were things that just kind of, you know, lie dormant for a while until one day they just sneak up on you and remind you, oh, you haven't dealt with me. Right?
Tiffany Malone:And the question comes back that reminds me that change is no small thing. Right? This this thing transformation that we talk about is no small thing it's very much an element a product of spiritual warfare, if you will. And so as I was thinking about this the other night, a quote from John Maxwell that I'd memorized a while back came to mind, and I I was struck by the profundity of it, by the truth of it. He says, change happens only when people either learn enough that they want to change, when they heard enough that they have to change, or that or when they receive enough that they're able to change.
Tiffany Malone:And I realize there is a lot of truth in that quote. People have to either learn enough that they want to change, they have to hurt enough or have a circumstance bad enough that they have to change, or they have to receive enough that they're able to change. And so thinking about that it made me think about, a metaphor that I've heard for years. And I was thinking about all this stuff kind of all at the same time. It kind of sent me down this path, of what I'm going to share with you today.
Tiffany Malone:But I was thinking about the metaphor of, you know, the the the butter the the caterpillar caterpillar caterpillar into the butterfly. Right? We we know that happens through this process called metamorphosis. I can I can remember growing up? I remember when we learned about this in elementary school because in our backyard, we used to have caterpillars everywhere.
Tiffany Malone:And I actually remember up in one tree, we had tree in in our backyard. I used to climb sometime, and I actually saw a cocoon once. And so I remember learning about that and and remembering what the cocoon looked like. But all my life I think I had been missing a really really key element in this in this caterpillar to butterfly this metamorphosis concept that after about a 5 minute Google search the other day, right, Kinda came clear to me. And it has everything to do with change, why it's difficult for us, what's really happening.
Tiffany Malone:Well, in my mind, call me dumb. I I know y'all knew all knew this already and I was just it just went over my head. But I have always thought of metamorphosis just in the sense of change on its surface. Right? Like, okay.
Tiffany Malone:The caterpillar goes in. The butterfly comes out. And I don't know if I ever really asked, like, what is actually happening inside the cocoon? Right? Like, if you really stop and think about it, what is going on in there that something so totally different comes out on the other side?
Tiffany Malone:Well I was googling the other night and what I learned, it was it it it just it just had a a really huge impact on me. Y'all probably knew this already, so humor me. But, apparently, the caterpillar's digestive juices that exist in the body of the caterpillar, When the caterpillar goes and spins the cocoon, the juices on the inside come out and actually digest the caterpillar. Those enzyme enzymes and the molecular restructuring and all the scientific things that I'm really not qualified to talk about. Change come together through the amazing mind of God's creation and how he does everything he does.
Tiffany Malone:And weeks later, the the butterfly comes out. And what I think I had been missing all this time that really helped me, understand this change thing is something that I think we miss when we're needing to make changes in our own life. And that's that the caterpillar is actually going in to die. Right? I always thought caterpillar turns into the butterfly.
Tiffany Malone:No. The caterpillar is no more. It doesn't get any more no more than dissolved in digestive juices and those juices repurpose into a new creation he literally dies Y'all that's part of the thing that's so hard about change. We like to think of change as the beginning state and the end state. But what we don't like to think of is that something has to be undone in order to be remade.
Tiffany Malone:A death of sorts, an undoing, a permanent change if you will, happens in the middle that resembles something like a death. It's kind of like oh I don't know the gospel it it's a very similar thing that happens and in our lives we don't we sometimes don't compute that's the demand change asks of us. It is the death of something well the death of what well this is another thing we don't we don't do we don't often fully understand why it was the way it needed to change and let me say that better we don't fully often understand the why we exhibit the behavior we exhibited that we now are saying needs to change, right? That the the thing that we wrestle with that we look at and we say this needs to change. We don't have a full grasp on all that goes into why we engage in the in this behavior, in this thought process, in this in this habit.
Tiffany Malone:What whatever the thing is. We we don't we don't get to the root of that. Right? And so if you don't really look at that, right? If you don't really gaze at it, if you don't stare at it, right?
Tiffany Malone:It's it's it's it's it's very much the the very fitting metaphor that James uses when he says, if you are a hearer of the word and not a doer, it's like somebody who looks at himself in the mirror and forgets what he saw. If you don't really look at yourself in the mirror, right? If you don't really see why do I need to even change this? What made me even go the path of the this that needs to change in the first place? Why do I keep returning to this?
Tiffany Malone:What is in this for me? We don't like to do that. Because, I mean, really, what is the need to change after all, except a moment where our way of going through life meets the truth. That is what happens when we recognize that there is a need to change, right? And and James puts it beautifully in the in the in the picture of a mirror because that's what truth really is.
Tiffany Malone:Because think about it a mirror is a mirror is a mirror It only shows you what is in front of it. You know? Think of if if I if I were going to an event, a really important event, and I bought a new dress, and I got my hair done, and I got my makeup done, and I got all dressed up. And I'm about to step out the door to go to the event, but I step in front of the mirror on the way out to look at myself. And the mirror tells me that I have red lipstick smeared across my top front teeth.
Tiffany Malone:The mirror is the truth. Right? The mirror is undefeated. The truth is undefeated. The mirror is always telling you what is.
Tiffany Malone:Right? It is simply reflecting you. So my current state all dressed up looking good except a row full of front teeth that have red lipstick all over them. Right? And the mirror, the truth meet each other.
Tiffany Malone:And now I should recognize a need to change something, right? If I opt to accept what the truth the mirror has told me, I'll promptly go to the bathroom, get some, you know, tissue, wipe my teeth, reconcile the picture that I have in my mind. Hopefully, by the time I make the adjustment of what the mirror has told me, that picture will match what the mirror is showing me. And then we will have alignment. Right?
Tiffany Malone:But, you know, we don't always accept the truth because sometimes when our manner of life the picture we have in our mind of what we think it the truth is meets the truth And the truth tells us, this is not what you think it is. Right? You don't look the way you think you look. This is not what you think it is. This does not mean what you think it means, right?
Tiffany Malone:When we find out because we've brushed up against the truth we don't have to accept the truth you know and we often don't accept the truth We often reject the truth. See what I've realized is the mirror is not only showing you what is, but it's also showing you what could be. Isn't it? Because you know how we do in the mirror. Sometimes we we'll stand in the mirror and we'll see what we look look like won't don't we?
Tiffany Malone:But if you you've ever done what I've done before. Sometimes you've put something on and you've stood in the mirror and you turned to the side and you've sucked in and you've gotten in a certain pose or you've looked and thought, if this then this. If this wasn't here then this. Or you've tried different ways with your hair to see what would be best. See, the mirror doesn't only show you what is.
Tiffany Malone:It also reveals your potential to change. Right? Our question, our responsibility, our issue is how do we respond to what the mirror reveals? Because what is the mirror really revealing? I believe at the end of the day, how you respond to what the mirror reveals, meaning whether you accept the truth that's there and adjust accordingly, or whether you reject it.
Tiffany Malone:Because we can reject what the mirror reveals. If you reject what the mirror reveals, what the mirror is really revealing is how much humility you have versus how much pride you have. Right? That's really what the mirror is revealing to us because we reject. We reject the truth all the time, don't we?
Tiffany Malone:Right? The mirror says something to us that we don't like so sometimes instead of receiving the truth we just recast what the truth told us and reinterpret it some other way. Oh, that's not something on my teeth. That's something wrong with the mirror. The mirror has a red stain on it right where my smile goes.
Tiffany Malone:My teeth are not needing to be wiped off. It's the mirror that needs to be wiped off. Right? Or maybe we don't even wanna look and see what the mirror has to say to us And so we just walk right by it and pretend not to see what it's showing us. Maybe we wanna make the mirror not be a mirror so we hang a bunch of stuff on top of it so that when we go buy it, it doesn't show us what it's supposed to show us.
Tiffany Malone:Those are all the things we do to reject the truth. Right? Well why do we do that? Because we wanna be good. Something in us sometimes.
Tiffany Malone:Pride wants to make us good. See we we realize we need to change because we're engaged in something that's out of alignment with the truth. But when you dig deeper, we're engaged in something that's out of alignment with the truth because on some level it serves us. It pays us. And when we try to reconcile that we've engaged in something that serves us outside of the truth with the pride that sometimes exists in our heart that needs to be laid at the feet of Jesus but hasn't just yet because we're still being sanctified.
Tiffany Malone:We don't like to see how ugly it is. We wanna see ourselves as good. We don't wanna see that we're still struggling in this bad relationship because we say we love Jesus but we actually love what he doesn't love. We don't wanna see that about ourselves. We don't wanna see that we aren't taking our health seriously and honoring our bodies as the temple of God because we love something else more than we love stewarding and caring for what God has given us.
Tiffany Malone:And if we just really look at that for what it is it convicts us. It shows us our undone state. But here's the thing. Here's the thing. Nobody ever changed that didn't realize they needed to.
Tiffany Malone:Remember the quote we talked about at the beginning? You learn enough that you want to, you heard enough that you have to, or you receive enough that you're able to. And as long as we engage in the behavior that keeps us from seeing how bad it is, We can never get to the place where we cry out to the one who can make the change in our hearts and lives. The gospel is the death, the burial, and the resurrection in order to usher in the spirit of God which is the power to transform us. But before we can receive what will transform us, we have to come to the place where we see how bad it is.
Tiffany Malone:And so the thing which we avoid, the thing which we hate about change is the thing that lets us see how ugly it is. But I wanna tell y'all, until we see how ugly it is, we don't get to enjoy the beauty of transformation. We have to realize we need a savior. And while I wish that happened one time one and done, what my walk is telling me is that it actually happens again and again and again and again. We have to continually stay surrendered and humble over and over and over and over again.
Tiffany Malone:So if you've ever asked that question, if you've asked it in despair, if you've asked it in frustration, if you've asked it even in hopelessness, why is change so hard? I want to encourage you. I want to encourage you to have the courage to approach the mirror of truth squarely flat footed and see what it shows you. See all the ugly that it shows you. See all the potential for change.
Tiffany Malone:Embrace it all with the knowledge that Christ came to address just that. That's why change is so hard. Because we can't do it by ourselves. So I hope that as you do the work along the route, I hope that as you address the question of change that you have the power, I hope you have the courage to look into the mirror of truth and see what it's revealing, but more importantly I hope you have the courage to come to the foot of the cross and to bring everything that it is revealed about your weakness and every shortcoming that you have and that I have and that we all have and we bring it to the foot of the cross, to the foot of the only one who can do anything about it. Fully trusting Him to give us the true power to transform and that's it, that's the work for this week.
Tiffany Malone:I told you all it was going to be a great day, y'all make sure it is. Till next time, we'll see you.