The trouble with change is tracking it. It seems humans aren’t innately designed to understand their own growth. It’s much easier to see changes occurring outside of yourself than changes inside. Is it because we imperceptibly change as a natural consequence of aging, and it’s nearly impossible to distinguish those changes from ones we are attempting to implement by force of will? Maybe that’s why a God figure helps. Anything that we experience as brought on by a God feels more organic because its arbiter is silent. It’s not our mind, it’s not a book, it’s not another flesh and blood person. It’s something we envision as real, so it has weight, but it’s completely invisible. Therefore our powerful inner need for stability and homeostasis in our lives is not alerted to any changes which may be occurring as a result of this prayer-based relationship. So that’s good. You can indeed use a God to make more permanent changes in your life, hopefully for the good.

But I still get frustrated that I can’t viscerally monitor the changes. Another reason for this is that real change occurs quite gradually. Our awareness is only tapped into wild swings that occur nearly instantaneously. Those swings, that do happen rather frequently, are not the kind of changes that I am striving for in my life. For one thing, they usually come from random sources that aren’t connected to my goals. Also I’m probably exerting most of my energy recovering from them rather than internalizing whatever wisdom may be gleaned from them.