Change starts with you.

One of my favorite sayings is what I call "a sticker."   Once you hear it, it stays with you all your life.  It goes something like this,  " You can either light up a room by walking in it or light up a room by leaving it."    The conviction left upon my heart is amazing in this statement.  Immediately the words integrity, honor, kindness, compassion, fairness, leadership and a host of others flood my mind.  It's applicable to your home life, business world, church, relationships and any other situations you enter in to.  You can be one or the other but the choice is yours and yours alone.
In our crazy, spinning out of control, insanely busy world today our minds are constantly bombarded by "How To's..."   Turn on the TV, computer or cell phone and you can master your own universe with a program, pill, product, or application.  From how to walk, talk, dress, eat, relate, date, marry, divorce, believe, achieve, conceive, aspire, desire and on and on and on they go, until your mind becomes one big convoluted mess.   In our quest to be the complete person we end up falling short because we can't possibly measure up to the lofty standards of a self serving and superficial society.  We have let the world dictate to us the type of person we should be.   And in doing so, we have lost a great deal of the uniqueness that God has personally stamped on each of us.   When we let outside influences subliminally creep in we end up conforming to a value system or situation we inevitably conflict with.   This conflict affects our whole being from our mind and attitude to our decisions and consequences.   Folks, we weren't built for this!  That's why we have these inner struggles.  Hello, that's the Holy Spirit battling the devil for control of you!  Or for my politically correct friends, your conscience. ;)
Now, I have been privileged to be around a light up the room by walking into it type of person,  my wife Melissa.  For the past 24 years since she rededicated her life to the Lord, she has quietly moved mountains and shaped lives in a manner the makes her Heavenly Father smile quite often.  She has many of the attributes of Christ because she spends each day in a dynamic fellowship with Him.   Through regular prayer, meditation, submission and studying of God's word, she has become a rock.  People gravitate to her because of her kind heart, willing ear, patient demeanor and sound advice.  But she is quick to deflect praise back to the Lord.  It's in her humility you find her strength.  I know because I hear the compliments and I couldn't be more proud.  Now enough about her and she would say so too.   God's word in Jeremiah 31:33 says,  "I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts.  I will be their God and they will be my people."
  You see, we are setup to be right minded.  It's ingrained in us from birth!  We just need to tap into our supernatural resource that Jesus gave us so freely and spent His life testifying about!  The cleansing blood of Christ will heal you.  Then the Holy Spirit will renew you.   Simplify by unplugging from the world a bit each day.   Take more than one hour on Sunday to give time to the Lord.  Work on your relationship with Christ and he will change you forever.  Then you too will be a light for a dark world!

Romans 12:2
“And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God."